Ontologies of climate change

Abstract

In Namibia, both Damara pastoralists (ǂNūkhoen) and scientists agree that it rains less frequently than before. To explain their observations, however, scientists refer to carbon dioxide molecules, while the pastoralists point to social tensions, neoliberalism, and failures of the postcolonial state. To understand this discrepancy, I ask whether what scientists call precipitation and what Damara call ǀnanus are really the same thing. Engaging with phenomenological theories, I propose a worldliness continuum that reveals substantial ontological difference between the two. While precipitation occurs independently of humans, ǀnanus encompasses everything—it is life and death. If the two are different things, it is unsurprising that one needs different explanations for them. Acknowledging this creates space to navigate between the recognition of multiple ontologies and the politicization of carbon dioxide emissions. [climate change, ontology, phenomenology, world, knowledge, environment, drought, Namibia]

What Does the Situation Say? Theorizing Multiple Understandings of Climate Change

“…To explain this, I have identified three components that can become building blocks for a more finished phenomenological theory of environmental knowing. They add to my previous work that foregrounds practices, aims, and the networks of involvements around a phenomenon (Schnegg 2019(Schnegg , 2021a. The remaining paragraphs reflect these components and the steps still ahead.…”

“…Friedrich (2017, 331) finds that on the Philippine island of Palawan, people with different education levels disagree on climate change. In a similar vein, my past research in Namibia has shown how pastoralists and scientists make distinctively different sense of the lack of rain and of climate change (Schnegg 2019(Schnegg , 2021a.…”

“…In my previous work, I have also shown that Namibian scientists and Damara people share many observations about the winds, the rains, and climate change. At the same time, their explanations can hardly be more different, which indicates that the phenomena are different things for them (Schnegg 2019(Schnegg , 2021a.…”

“…The rain has a different use for people who have gardens than for those who do not. In this view, the practice of gardening partly determines what the rain is and also how it is explained (Ingold and Kurttila 2000;Schnegg 2019Schnegg , 2021a. Second, knowing resides in things.…”

A poetics of living rebellion: Sociocultural anthropology in 2021

“…Similarly, scholars probed the “ontological” premises of climate change, interrogating the either/or of the “one‐world‐many‐representations model and the many‐worlds model,” instead proposing a worldliness continuum “along which ontological difference varies” (Schnegg 2021, 269).…”