In the past few years, adaptation to climate change has emerged as a dominant new theme in development politics, to an extent that it can almost be considered as a new development paradigm. Yet, this new paradigm and its effects are not unproblematic, as the empirical research in three East African countries presented in this article indicates. The article argues that the current transformation of environmental governance reflects not only climate change as such, but also – and perhaps even more so – the discourse of a changing climate and its effect on development politics. The empirical evidence shows that African farmers, politicians and government officials often respond to the new ‘adaptation paradigm’ more readily than to directly felt phenomena caused by a changing climate. We therefore argue that the ontology of the concept of adaptation to climate change needs to be readjusted. Epistemologically, our concern is to trace the discourse of adaptation to climate change across multiple sites, i.e. how it ‘travels’ between global epistemic communities and adaptation projects in developing countries. Drawing on actor‐network theory and its concept of translation, we provide an alternative view of adaptation to climate change by highlighting the contested and multi‐sited narratives and practices that bring adaptation into being.

Building upon post-foundational political philosophies, this article scrutinizes the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 from a micro-geographical perspective. The analysis suggests that three different spaces exist at the site of the summit and reveals how their constituting practices and material arrangements rendered "Paris" post-democratic. We begin with exposing the staged statements of the world's political elites in the meticulously orchestrated Leaders Event as different phenotypes of the post-democratic condition. We then investigate the formal negotiations in the cordoned-off backrooms, where positions within the system were at stake, but not the system as such. Finally, we wander through the strictly policed "trade fair" and unveil attempts to entice delegates into techno-managerial solutions to the climate crisis. In the conclusion, we ponder over the prospects of environmental activism at the COPs in the light of their massive depoliticization.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This paper explores the role of trees in the politics of forestation in Uganda from the vantage point of recent object-oriented philosophy. Rather than conceiving of trees as passive, a substrate of thought, or serving utilitarian ends in human action, this paper stresses their autonomous ontological efficacy. First, it shows how trees themselves, in this case the monumental Milicia excelsa, matter to (post-)colonial politics in the country through affective materiality. Second, considering the Eucalyptus grandis, it argues that the species has a variety of qualities that unfold under different circumstances and to different effects, and, in this way, complicate the government of forestation. At the same time, however, there is another potentiality of the tree; one that allows the government of forestation across difference. Third, the paper emphasises the adaptability of trees and argues that this trait enables present-day reforestation, in which trees are often disciplined in growing schemes and subsequently denied their treeness. In conclusion, I contend that the empirical case furthers the engagement with politics in object-oriented approaches, and argue that this is no mere academic exercise but also has implications for the practice of forest stewardship.

No abstract

No abstract