Previous studies have shown that climatic changes in the Peruvian Andes pose a threat to lowland communities, mainly through changes in hydrology. This study uses a case study approach and a mixed qualitative-quantitative method to examine the vulnerability of small-scale farmers in the Quillcay River basin to variations in precipitation and enhanced glacier retreat. The findings of the study show partly contradicting results. On one hand, interpretation of semi-structured interviews suggests a strong relation between climate proxies and increased vulnerability of the smallholders. On the other hand, in the quantitative analysis enhanced glacier retreat seemed to have augmented vulnerability solely to some extent whereas precipitation did not show significant impact. The assessment of the socioeconomic dimension revealed that larger market forces, weak political entitlement and lack of social and economic capital fundamentally increased smallholders' vulnerability. It is, therefore, suggested that a complex cluster of economic, political and social factors are the root causes of small-scale farmers' vulnerability in the case study region whereas climate-related changes merely act as multiplying factors.
The intensifying impacts of climate change pose a serious global threat, particularly for rural populations whose livelihoods are closely tied to natural resources. Yet there is a lack of critical understanding of how asymmetric power dynamics shape the vulnerabilities of such populations under climate change. This article examines the interrelations between smallholders’ climate-related vulnerability experiences and power relations across multiple scales of climate adaptation in the Peruvian Andes, a region susceptible to increasing climatic threats. The analysis draws on a case study conducted in the Mantaro River Valley in Central Peru using qualitative methods: open-ended interviews, participant observation, and document analysis. Findings of the study show that in the context of climate change, the production of vulnerabilities has much to do with larger socio-political structures in which protection of the highland farmers is not prioritized. The impact of the uneven scalar power dynamics in climate adaptation and other overlapping fields of policy have created uneven terms of adaptation among smallholders. This has created marginalization, conflicts, and deepened smallholders’ vulnerabilities under climate change. I argue that to reach a better understanding of the multidimensionality of vulnerabilities, more detailed attention must be paid to place-based climate experiences within context-specific, socio-political processes, and to the ways these are shaped by unequal power relations across multiple scales.
Recent tendency towards internationalization of academic publishing has reinforced the dominant role of English language in scholarly debates and discussions. The monolinguistic development has led to several drawbacks: it risks to sustain global inequalities in knowledge production, limits the access of non-native English speakers to international publishing, and disengages place-specific knowledge from national and local contexts, not only in scholarly communities but also among decision-makers and within the civil society. In response, Fennia seeks ways towards multicultural publishing, including lingual plurality. The journal has a long history in multilingual publishing yet, in its present form – following international standards of journal publishing, with modest resources – its content is solely in English. The editorial briefly introduces this linguistic development, since 1889, and presents ideas for further activities. Fennia’s current multilingual strategy emphasizes the popularization of the peer reviewed content in different languages, which is implemented through collaboration with the online popular science forum Versus. This serves two ends in broadening the audience, beyond the academy and the primarily English-speaking world. The collaboration of Fennia and Versus has already yielded multilingual popular science articles accessible in the contexts that the research concerns and in the societies where the authors work. Based on positive experiences and feedback, we are eager to continue similar efforts promoting linguistic plurality. As achieving these aims requires notable extra effort – from authors, editors, and the publisher – we call for support and commitment from the funding agencies and academic institutions that we rely on, along with the scholarly community whose voluntary work forms the basis of all activities in Fennia.
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