Climatologists and Merina farmers read the sky in Madagascar - Crossed glances

Daniel Peyrusaubes
ICoTEM EA 2252
Département de Géographie, Université de Poitiers, France
daniel.peyrusaubes@mshs.univ-poitiers.fr

Abstract
Imerina is the territory of one of the 18 recognized ethnic groups of Madagascar. Located in the central Highlands, this area is densely populated mainly by a rural population. Furthermore, this are a concentrates a large part of the political and economic power of the island (presence of the State capital Antananarivo).Here, rural communities build and maintain landscapes widely dedicated to rice growing cultivation during the rainy season (almost an institutional activity). A strong ecological feature of Merina lands is the wet tropical climate mitigated by the height of the land (1500 meters on average). This particular climate including hazards (cyclones, hail, rainfall deficit…) associated with this ricegrowing and developing society expresses itself by the existence of a real "meteoroclimatic" culture. Knowledges, perceptions, faiths, prohibitions linked with climate features constitute a rich corpus of civilization. Confronting these vernacular cultural knowledges with scientific data reveals similarities and complementarities. Beyond studying only the topic of climate, this research is also a way of getting a better knowledge of a population. In a double world context of climate change and sustainable development, it is of interest for anybody in charge of assessing territories and developing public policies to attach great value to local knowledges and practices.

 

The Great Drought of Restinga Sêca: Conflicts, Politics and Environment in the South Region of Brazil

Carlos Abraão Moura Valpassos
Graduate Program in Social Anthropology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
valpassos@yahoo.com.br

Abstract
The city of Restinga Sêca, located in the south region of Brazil, has as its main product of its economy the agriculturist production, most of all rice plantations and tobacco. In the years of 2004 and 2005, the city went through one of the longest dry periods of its history. The phenomenon was classified, by the city people and by the local government as a drought, which constituted an atypical happening in the south region of the country. This paper approaches the social effects of the drought and its influences on other problems experienced by the people of Restinga Sêca.

 

Work, time and visibility: prophetic narratives in the Brazilian sertão

Karla Patrícia Holanda Martins (UNIFOR – University of Fortaleza, Brazil)), and
Fernanda Glória Bruno (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
kphm@uol.com.br

Abstract
Walter Benjamin says that, in the true narrative, soul, eye and hand are inscribed in the same space: the invisible, the visible and the work, simultaneously. In other words, in the true narrative the hand intervenes with its gestures, learned from the experience of work. Therefore, Benjamin wonders if such experience with the hands is not the basis of the narrative experience as the main path to knowledge. The experience with work and with the hands would be, therefore, the main support for the significant fluxes, the way for men to say what cannot be said and to transform the experience into something solid, unique and useful. The goal of this intervention is to think about the contemporary relations of men with work and with the natural space, about their capacity to keep alert to other men - one of the names of nature - having as a starting point the discourse of the prophets of nature. This discussion will be guided by a research made with the prophets of nature who live in the central region of the state of Ceará, a region called /sertão/. For eleven years now, in the second Saturday of the year, the Center of Sellers of the city of Quixadá gathers men, mostly agricultures, known in the community for their ability to predict if there will or not be rain. They are, therefore, called "rain prophets" or "nature prophets". Together with technicians from FUNCEME (the local meteorological foundation) and amateur meteorologists, they try to predict if the coming winter will be rainy or dry. Such prophecies, in creating an appropriation and a figuration of the times to come, overcome the meaning of impotence, guiding the action of other actors in the community. Different from an ecological discourse that withdraws men from its place in nature or from the contemporary approach of nature as an idyllical space, in which there are no conflicts - present in the many resorts presently built - nature is a category of language. In the words of the prophet Chico Leiteiro: "I know nothing about letters. But nature is an open book. Sometimes people say: How do you understand it? My friend, I reply, seeing is one thing, but understanding is another thing".Based on fragments of speeches by the rain prophets who live in sertão, we can reflect upon the value of a prophecy and its function: to reestablish, through language, a connection between nature and culture as well as to think about the visibility regimes in contemporary world.

 

When “the Hundred-Year-Flood Comes Every Other Year”: Inupiaq Coping and Adaptation Strategies in a Climate of Change

Elizabeth Marino and Peter Schweitzer
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA
ftekm@uaf.edu

Abstract
The majority of Inuit cultures throughout the circumpolar North rely on sea mammals, fish, and other sea resources to sustain their subsistence economy and cultural heritage. As climate change continues to affect the North more rapidly than other parts of the globe, many of these changes are directly affecting these coastal dwellers. Studies have shown that many parts of the Arctic have experienced greater levels of precipitation, intensity of storm activity, increased windiness, increased flooding and increased erosion, all linked (directly and/or indirectly) to climate change. In Alaska, many Inupiaq villages today have become particularly vulnerable to dramatic erosion and flooding. As these disasters occur, Inupiaq communities are forced to cope with imminent disasters and look for possibilities of long-term preemptive adaptation. We take two case studies from the Seward Peninsula in Western Alaska and look at how local individuals and government institutions react to the respective situations. As people in the far North are experiencing climate change contemporarily, not as a future event, how are they coping? Inupiaq people have long been acknowledged for their adaptive capacity. In the contemporary climate of social and ecological changes, these coping strategies and adaptations continue in interesting ways. This paper will assess the vulnerability of Inupiaq communities in Alaska to climate change and look at how communities have dealt with climate variability in the past. Finally the paper will address how, as these new climate phenomena are being experienced, communities use the resources available to them to cope with local disasters and plan long-term adaptation strategies.

 

Climate Change, Culture Change and Human Rights: Making the Case for Viliui Sakha of Northeastern Siberia

Susan A. Crate
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
scrate1@gmu.edu

Abstract
Viliui Sakha are native horse and cattle breeders of sub-arctic Siberia, Russia who have adapted to an extreme climate, Russian colonization, Sovietization, and post-Soviet decentralization. Their newest challenges are the local effects of global climate change (GCC). 90% of interviewees told that GCC threatened to undermine their subsistence. Elders talk about how the climate was and how it has/is changing. Beyond once again challenging these communities' adaptive capacity, the local effects of GCC also have clear cultural implications. Sakha daily life, world view and cosmology are founded in horse and cattle breeding. If we agree that wisdom "sits in places," then we need to grapple with the extent to which GCC is and will increasingly transform these spaces, symbolic forms and places. Both the loss of Sakhas' subsistence culture, their projected inability to maintain their herds if warming continues, and thereby of their symbolic culture reframe the implications of unprecedented GCC. Accordingly, GCC poses human rights offenses for Viliu Sakha including: the right to use and enjoy property, the right to life, physical integrity and security, and the right to enjoy the benefits of culture. This paper overviews Viliui Sakha elders' testimonies about the local effects of GCC and their environmental and cultural implications, explores how those testimonies build a case for the human rights offenses of GCC for these communities, then contemplates social scientists' role(s) in encountering these local realities and advocacy. The paper also makes some initial explorations into the question of "What agency do indigenous rights have in communities' perceptions/understandings of and responses to the local effects of global climate change?" by comparing the Viliui Sakha case with that of the Saami of Fennoscandia who exercise a higher degree of indigenous rights than Sakha.

 

Cultural Models, Climate Change and Biofuels

Kathleen E. Halvorsen, Stuart M. Kramer, Smriti Dahal, and Barry S. Solmon
Michigan Technological University, USA
kehalvor@mtu.edu

Abstract
As climate change risk grows, mitigation strategies become increasingly important. One strategy is the use of biofuels and one of the most promising biofuels is cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol can provide greater net energy benefits and lower environmental costs than grain ethanol, sugar beet ethanol, or biodiesel. However, at least in the United States, in order to be cost-competitive with petroleum and corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol requires significant government support through a variety of policies. This means that the future of cellulosic ethanol in the U.S. rests on continued policy supports. This in turn means that public support (or lack thereof) for cellulosic ethanol policies is critical to future development of this mitigation strategy. This presentation reports on interviews with key specialists and lay citizens in the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The specialists were members of key forestry, agricultural, taxpayer, environmental, and energy organizations at the state and U.S. national level. These interviews were designed to assess the cultural models being used by interviewees to understand climate change causes, climate change solutions, renewable energy, biofuels, and cellulosic ethanol. Our findings suggest that there was a strong sense that climate change is a serious problem, but faulty cultural models (supporting earlier research) were frequently applied to understanding its causes and, therefore, its solutions. Implications for improvement of communications around climate change and for the development of cellulosic ethanol are discussed.

 

Decision making, cultural context, and the “human dimensions” of climate studies

Renzo Taddei
Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University, and
International Research Institute for Climate and Society, USA
taddei@iri.columbia.edu

Abstract
This paper analyses how the idea of "human dimensions" of climate studies is constructed in mainstream academic discourse in the United States and Brazil. The argument contrasts a review of articles recently published in academic journals with ethnographic data collected in Northeast Brazil, focusing on the difficulties and challenges of climate communication. The research provides evidence that, in the majority of the articles consulted, cultural and symbolic aspects of the ways by which communities interact with climate is overshadowed by an economic approach, where "decision making" and material production (or material protection, in cases of disaster) is the focus of attention. On the other hand, the ethnographic research provided evidence that it is precisely the symbolic dimension that transforms the ways in which communities appropriate and use scientific climate knowledge, in directions that are not always those intended by scientists. The goal of this paper is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how culture and context shapes meanings and social rituals and performances related to climate. I take the politics of climate as a set of textual constructions that can only be interpreted against the cultural and social circumstances in which they are embedded.

 

Rain and Drought - Climate and its Representations in Mexico

Esther Katz and Annamária Lammel, Marina Goloubinoff,
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement/Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, France
Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil
katz@mnhn.fr

Abstract
In the Southern part of Mexico, as in most tropical regions, the passage from rainy to dry season is fundamental for farmers' daily life. The management of natural resources is totally linked to the climate. Corn, the local main staple, is very dependent on rain, as irrigation is not common in mountainous areas. Waiting for the first rains is source of anxiety, yet too much rain may cause damage. Among indigenous populations, a very rich lore that can be tracked from prehispanic times has been developed around the meteorological phenomena, especially the rain. Weather forecast is essential to plan agricultural works. Farmers have elaborated complex forecasting systems, rooted in both Hispanic and autochtonous tradition. Rain rituals are very important throughout the country. They are rooted as well in prehispanic traditions but are the expression of a wide syncretism. Some type of weather magicians are still found among indigenous groups, even in areas close to Mexico City, where they are initiated by a lightning strike. Rain and drought are a symbolic axis in daily practices, suchas agriculture and cooking, as well as in the representation of reproduction, vital processes, fertility and abundance. Climate change has also become a discussion topic among Mexican farmers and is interpreted within their symbolic framework. Scientists and other stakeholders in the present debates on climate have rarely taken into account the folk knowledge, and even less its symbolical aspects, often interpreted as beliefs\superstitions. Yet the knowledge is not separate from the expression of the global cosmovision of a society. In a world where climatic risks and disasters are being worsened by human impact on nature, lessons may be drawn from farmers' knowledge and world view.

 

Beyond the Forecast: Narrative in Prediction Performances

Karen Pennesi
University of Western Ontario, Canada
pennesi@uwo.ca

Abstract
The idea that there is a conflict between traditional and scientific climate predictions is rooted in the perpetual struggle for control of meaning. This paper examines how this struggle plays out in the linguistic performance of predictions. The analytical focus is on narrative, both as a structural framework for prediction, and as a process of ongoing interaction between the forecaster and the "user" community that comprises the audience. At stake in this competition for authority is the credibility of institutions and of individuals. Drawing on research in Ceará, Northeast Brazil, I show how meteorologists and traditional "rain prophets" construct their authority in different ways by making use of particular linguistic devices. Meteorologists produce institutional prediction narratives by adhering to a narrow range of linguistic strategies within a general scientific discourse of providing information to aid decisionmaking. On the other hand, rain prophets engage in a more personal form of identity formation, contextualizing the meaning of heir predictions more broadly to include advice on behaviour, attitude and morality, in addition to agricultural practice. I argue that an understanding of how prediction is made meaningful through narrative helps explain how the distinction between science and tradition is created, and why this distinction is emphasized.

 

Creating Climate in Anthropology: An historical view of climate knowledge in the social sciences

Nicole Peterson and Kenneth Broad
Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia, University, USA
np2184@columbia.edu

Abstract
Anthropologists and other social scientists themselves create and distribute narratives about how climate and human behavior interact and what this means for decision making, belief systems, and other aspects of social life. In taking an historical perspective on anthropology's engagement with climate and its predictors, we find that climate has often been evaluated as a variable in how people interact with their surroundings, but that more recent work emphasizes the role of local knowledge and experience in interpreting and communicating climate information. In addition, an evaluation of current directions in climate research, in anthropology and other disciplines, suggests the potential for wider discussions about global information flows, the role of the nationstate and other entities in emergency preparedness, and decision making under uncertainty. The analysis then builds on this past work to suggest directions for interdisciplinary investigation of the contemporary situation, with a focus on the role of uncertainty in mediating responses to unprecedented environmental changes.