No abstract

In this article, we discuss how two interpretations of vulnerability in the climate change literature are manifestations of different discourses and framings of the climate change problem. The two differing interpretations, conceptualized here as 'outcome vulnerability' and 'contextual vulnerability', are linked respectively to a scientific framing and a human-security framing. Each framing prioritizes the production of different types of knowledge, and emphasizes different types of policy responses to climate change. Nevertheless, studies are seldom explicit about the interpretation that they use. We present a diagnostic tool for distinguishing the two interpretations of vulnerability and use this tool to illustrate the practical consequences that interpretations of vulnerability have for climate change policy and responses in Mozambique. We argue that because the two interpretations are rooted in different discourses and differ fundamentally in their conceptualization of the character and causes of vulnerability, they cannot be integrated into one common framework. Instead, it should be recognized that the two interpretations represent complementary approaches to the climate change issue. We point out that the human-security framing of climate change has been far less visible in formal, international scientific and policy debates, and addressing this imbalance would broaden the scope of adaptation policies. Dans cet article, nous discutons de la façon dont deux interprétations de la « vulnérabilité », telle qu'elle est couverte dans la littérature sur les changements climatiques, représentent deux manières différentes d'aborder le sujet du problème climatique. Les deux interprétations, définies ici en tant que « vulnérabilité liée aux conséquences » et« vulnérabilité liée au contexte » relèvent, respectivement, du point de vue scientifique et celui de la sécurité humaine. Chaque point de vue donne priorité à la formation de différents types de savoir, et mettent en valeur différents modèles de politiques de réponses aux changements climatiques. Cependant, les différentes études précisent rarement quelle définition est appliquée. Une méthode d'évaluation permettant de distinguer les deux interprétations est avancée ici et appliquée pour illustrer leurs conséquences réelles sur les politiques et réponses, au Mozambique. Les deux interprétations étant ancrées dans deux discours différents et étant fondamentalement différentes quant à la conceptualisation du caractère et des causes de la vulnérabilité, elles ne peuvent être intégrées dans un cadre d'analyse commun. Il s'agit plutôt de reconnaitre que les deux interprétations représentent des approches complémentaires au problème des changements climatiques. Le point de vue de la sécurité humaine a été jusqu'alors moins couvert dans le débat international officiel en matière de science et de politiques : un rééquilibrage agrandirait le champ des politiques d'adaptation.

No abstract

No abstract

We investigate how smallholder farmers at two sites in Kenya and Tanzania cope with climate stress and how constraints and opportunities shape variations in coping strategies between households and over time during a drought. On the basis of this analysis, we draw out implications for adaptation and adaptive policy. We find that households where an individual was able to specialize in one favoured activity, such as employment or charcoal burning, in the context of overall diversification by the household, were often less vulnerable than households where each individual is engaged in many activities at low intensity. Many households had limited access to the favoured coping options due to a lack of skill, labour and/or capital. This lack of access was compounded by social relations that led to exclusion of certain groups, especially women, from carrying out favoured activities with sufficient intensity. These households instead carried out a multitude of less favoured and frequently complementary activities, such as collecting indigenous fruit. While characterized by suitability to seasonal environmental variations and low demands on time and cash investments, these strategies often yielded marginal returns. Both the marginalization of local niche products and the commercialization of forest resources exemplify processes leading to differential vulnerability. We suggest that vulnerability can usefully be viewed in terms of the interaction of such processes, following the concept of locality. We argue that coping is a distinct component of vulnerability and that understanding the dynamism of coping and vulnerability is critical to developing adaptation measures that support people as active agents.

adaptation, climate change, climate policy, coping, vulnerability, vulnerability indicators,

No abstract

Climate change research is at an impasse. The transformation of economies and everyday practices is more urgent, and yet appears ever more daunting as attempts at behaviour change, regulations, and global agreements confront material and social-political infrastructures that support the status quo. Effective action requires new ways of conceptualizing society, climate and environment and yet current research struggles to break free of established categories. In response, this contribution revisits important insights from the social sciences and humanities on the co-production of political economies, cultures, societies and biophysical relations and shows the possibilities for ontological pluralism to open up for new imaginations. Its intention is to help generate a different framing of socionatural change that goes beyond the current science-policy-behavioural change pathway. It puts forward several moments of inadvertent concealment in contemporary debates that stem directly from the way issues are framed and imagined in contemporary discourses. By placing values, normative commitments, and experiential and plural ways of knowing from around the world at the centre of climate knowledge, we confront climate change with contested politics and the everyday foundations of action rather than just data.