Discussion Form Question

Culture & Environment: Anthropological Approaches to Environmental Issues ANT3CAE

MODULE 4.2: Case study: local communities and glacial retreat in Peruvian Andes

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=17331

 

 

Jacamba Glacier, Peruvian Andes, 1980 and 2000 (Photos by Tim Helwig-Larsen)

Case study: Glacier hazard zones Cordillera Blanca, Ancash region, Peru (Carey 2014)

 

 

Cordillera Blanca; Ancash region, Peru

 

 

Summary: Culture and climate change • Anthropologists have an important role to play in understanding and

highlighting the human dimensions of climate change; • Climate change mitigation and adaptation projects are unlikely to

succeed without close understanding of the societies in which they are to be implemented; • Resilience in communities is embedded in historical, social, and

cultural constructions that govern social interactions and the material development of communities. • Climate change practitioners can promote resilience to the physical

and material components of a socio-ecological system; • However the cultural side of resilience requires that livelihoods that

fulfil material, moral and spiritual needs in the context of major environmental or political change need be maintained to ensure sense of continuity of meaning and coherence.

 

 

References • Batterbury, S. 2008. “Anthropology and Global Warming: The Need for Environmental Engagement” The Australian Journal of Anthropology Vol. 19 No.

1, pp. 62-68.

• Bolin, I. 2009. “The Glaciers of the Andes are melting: Indigenous and Anthropological knowledge merge in restoring water resources” in S. Crate & M. Nuttall. (eds.) Anthropology and climate change: from encounters to actions, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, pp.228-239.

• Carey, M. 2013. “The Politics of Place: Inhabiting and defending Glacier Hazard Zones in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca” in M. Dove (ed.) The Anthropology of Climate Change: An Historical Reader, Wiley, Hoboken, pp.247-257.

• Crate, S. & M. Nuttall (eds.), 2009. Anthropology and Climate Change: from encounters to actions, Walnut Creek., California: Left Coast Press.

• Hassan, F. 2009. Human agency, climate change, and culture: an archaeological perspective. In Anthropology and climate change: from encounters to actions (eds) S.A. Crate & M. Nuttall. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.

• Haraway, D. N. Ishikawa, S. F. Gilbert, K. Olwig, A. L. Tsing & N. Bubandt 2016, ”Anthropologists Are Talking – About the Anthropocene”, Ethnos, 81:3, 535-564

• Hassan, F. 2009. ‘Human agency, climate change, and culture: an archaeological perspective”, in S. Crate & M. Nuttall. (eds.) Anthropology and climate change: from encounters to actions, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, pp. 39- 69.

• Orlove, B.S. 2009. ‘Glacier retreat: reviewing the limits of human adaptation to climate change’. Environment Vol. 51, pp. 22-34.

• Rockstrom et al 2009. “Planetary Boundaries; exploring the safe Operating space for humanity”, Ecology and Society, Vol. 14 No. 2, p. 32

• Roncoli, C, T. Crane & B Orlove. 2009. “Fielding Climate Change in Cultural Anthropology”. In Anthropology and climate change: from encounters to actions, S. Crate & M. Nuttall (eds.) Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 87-115.

• Wilk, R. 2002. Consumption, human needs, and global environmental change. Global Environmental Change vol. 12, pp. 5-13.