Whose climate change adaptation ‘barriers’? Exploring the coloniality of climate change adaptation policy assemblages in Thailand and beyond

Abstract

Climate change adaptation (CCA) 'barriers' are frequently seen as responses to biophysical climate impacts, and thus defined as 'obstacles' to be 'overcome', rendered into categories of the technomanagerial. However, barriers are often undertheorized and are blind to explanations of their origins or the causal mechanisms by which they operate. This is especially complex for barrier critiques in the Global South in particular. Using a 'hybrid' assemblage and postcolonial approach, this paper disentangles existing barrier critiques in Thailand to lay bare underlying power imbalances and tensions. It finds that 'simplistic' vulnerability framings have deep roots in postcolonial histories; 'complacent' mainstreaming/budgeting trajectories have been nurtured by various IOs, and not necessarily much-maligned Thai bureaucrats; and limited technical expertise/willingness to engage are not so illogical, but rather results of diverse external forces. Given this, this paper urges institutional actors and researchers to reflect on epistemology, ontology, and their own positionality when assessing barriers in future.

A qualitative study of the migration-adaptation nexus to deal with environmental change in Tinghir and Tangier (Morocco)

“…Local knowledge and structures need to be taken into account to develop adaptation plans dealing with the joint impact of environmental and other societal changes (Ober and Sakdapolrak 2020). Additionally, a more critical stance should be taken to migration-as-adaptation discourses that assume individually-sent remittances will provide solutions for dealing with complex and community-wide environmental issues (Kapur 2005).…”

“…This results in a lack of understanding of the motivations to use migration as a potential adaptation strategy (Few et al 2017). Ignoring such local knowledge and structures reinforces (post)colonial relations exactly through the implementation of these adaptation strategies (Ober and Sakdapolrak 2020).…”

Clouded skies: How digital technologies could reshape “Loss and Damage” from climate change

“…Moreover, accumulated past emissions have locked in severe changes that will materialize regardless of present and future mitigation efforts (IPCC, 2013). Serious concerns exist also over the limits of and to adaptation, both in terms of feasibility and available resources (Klein et al, 2014; McNamara, Westoby, & Smithers, 2017; Ober & Sakdapolrak, 2019). The bottom line is that adaptation will inevitably reach its limits, that is, “points at which adaptation fails to protect things that stakeholders value” (Barnett et al, 2015, p. 5), and will not be successful for all people and all places (Tschakert et al, 2017).…”

Situating ‘migration as adaptation’ discourse and appraising its relevance to Senegal’s development sector

“…Most studies of migration as adaptation tend to focus on perspectives from international organisations (Ober, 2014Hall, 2015, or international climate negotiations (Bettini, 2014;Bettini et al, 2017;Methmann and Oels, 2015;Ober and Sakdapolrak, 2017;Ransan-Cooper et al, 2015;Rothe, 2017). Studies focused on national-level development policy contexts are rarer and tend to focus primarily on low-lying islands and coastal areas in the Pacific (e.g., Farbotko and Lazrus, 2012;Gharbaoui and Blocher, 2016;Remling, 2020), as well as in the Indian Ocean (Arnall and Kothari, 2015), Bangladesh (Geun Ji, 2019) and Thailand (Ober and Sakdapolrak, 2019).…”