1st Edition

Climate Change Epistemologies in Southern Africa Social and Cultural Dimensions

Edited By Jörn Ahrens, Ernst Halbmayer Copyright 2023
224 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

224 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book investigates the social and cultural dimensions of climate change in Southern Africa, focusing on how knowledge about climate change is conceived and conveyed. Despite contributing very little to the global production of emissions, the African continent looks set to be the hardest hit by climate change. Adopting a decolonial perspective, this book argues that knowledge and discourse... Read more

Introduction: epistemologies of global warming in the South. The social and cultural dimension of climate change in Southern Africa
Jörn Ahrens, Ernst Halbmayer

Part 1: Climate and climate change – justice epistemologies

  1. Drought, disaster and identity in northwestern Namibia in times of global climate change
    Michael Bollig
  2. When rain is a person: rainmaking, relational persons, and post-human ontologies in sub-Saharan Africa
    Michael Sheridan
  3. Environmental attitudes and narratives in two rural South African communities: implications for intervention
    Werner Nell
  4. Conflicting narratives of extreme weather events in Durban, South Africa: politically opportunistic, experiential and climate-justice epistemologies in an extreme weather event
    Patrick Bond, Mary Galvin
  5.  

    Part 2: Climate change communication

  6. Receptivity to the knowledge of others: building urban climate resilience in southern African cities
    Anna Taylor, Dianne Scott
  7. Print media coverage and the socio-contextual Representation of climate change in Botswana
    Gabriel Faimau, Esther Nkhukhu-Orlando, Nelson Sello
  8. Part 3: Just Transition and international co-operation

  9. Climate change equity and extreme vulnerability
    Steve Vanderheiden
  10. Adaptation to climate change in Southern Africa: challenges for sustainable development, and the role of International co-operation
    Matthias Rompel

Biography

Jörn Ahrens is Professor of Cultural Sociology at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), Germany, and Extraordinary Professor of Social Anthropology at North-West University (NWU), South Africa.

Ernst Halbmayer is Professor for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Marburg, Germany, where he is also Director of the Marburg Ethnographic Collection.