“Unpacking” the climate crisis: anthropological contributions to the study of climate change

If we were asked to choose a representation of climate change in our daily life, what would it be? In case we live in urban environments, we would probably select a picture that depicts air pollution, but is pollution equivalent to climate change? And if we had to think about the global dimensions of the climate crisis, what would come to our minds? Maybe melting glaciers or extreme weather events which seem to suggest the idea of a phenomenon too vast to be properly figured. These are some of the cues Professor Mauro Van Aken gave us as a way to introduce the DACS seminar he held on the 21st of January.

Little exercises of imagination as the ones described above, Van Aken stressed, reveal more than it might appear: our difficulty to “visualise” climate change is related to a significant unease in making sense of it. We lack a common alphabet and systems of meanings that would allow us to make it thinkable, but that is part of what makes climate change a very cultural issue, since it is culture that can provide shared structures of meanings.

Accelerated climatic changes are forcing us to rediscover a relatedness with the environment which we have been denying for a long time: here lies one of the reasons of our disorientation. So it is not just a matter of finding “technical” solutions to the climate crisis, but also of questioning an idea of nature as mere background on which human activities take place. Similarly, it may be not enough to de-carbonise our economy (since fossil fuel combustion produces greenhouse gases emissions which are one of the major drivers of climate change) if we do not put into question our carbon imaginary, under which we see nature as an object at our disposal that can be exploited in order to fulfil dreams of abundance, endless growth and wellness. Van Aken referred to the psychoanalytical notion of denial to describe the socially constructed process that led us to negate our interdependencies with nature and to put it at distance and to the concept of “crisi della presenza” (crisis of presence) elaborated by Ernesto De Martino to explain the sense of estrangement that take us in front of climate change.

In a moment in which forgotten interconnections with the environment re-emerge, anthropological knowledge can contribute to make this interrelation thinkable considering that it has been witnessing not only other patterns of socialising nature, but also that, historically, cultures have not taken weather for granted; instead, they have always been linked to the atmosphere and to climate variability. Anthropologists, then, are now particularly well-placed to try to “unpack” the climate crisis on the one hand looking at how it is perceived, comprehended and addressed locally, and on the other hand studying its social causes and consequences.

It is crucial for anthropologists, as Van Aken highlighted, not to be blind in front of the fact that the climate crisis is amplifying inequalities and is increasing the vulnerability of already marginalised local populations. Furthermore, anthropologists must take into account that, whether or not geologists will formalise that the impact of human activities on Earth is such as to mark a new geological epoch (the Anthropocene), the idea of humans as natural actors tackles the way in which we produce knowledge and invites us to reflect on the generative aspects of crossing rigid disciplinary borders.

Illustrations by Fatinha Ramos

References

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