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Paper short abstract:

Increased atmospheric heat is one of the main consequences of climate change. This paper connects the scientific thinking about heatwaves with the experiences of older adults living through and with increased heat, to understand heatwaves form multiple epistemological and ontological perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

The increased heat and heatwaves are becoming a more widespread phenomenon globally. In this paper we want to think about atmospheric heat through different epistemological and ontological perspectives. The paper stems from an ongoing research project “Embodying Climate Change: Transdisciplinary Research on Urban Overheating”, which combines social anthropology, sociology, climate science, epidemiology and environmental science, to study how one of the most vulnerable groups, adults over the age of 65 years old, are affected by and deal with heat stress in two European locations, Warsaw and Madrid.

For natural scientists, heatwaves are a defined and quantified phenomenon which is a ratio of temperature, humidity and prolonged occurrence over time. While for some older adults living in Warsaw we talked to, heatwave brought joy and energy, for most of them it meant sweating, mental and physical pain, sleepless nights, cancelling plans with friends and family, and increased loneliness. Heatwaves take both the form of numbers, diagrams and maps, as well as drawn curtains, a bowl filled with water, swollen legs. While these perspectives, experiences and materialities might correspond to the same weather event, they are not only understood differently, but indeed are different phenomena. For scientists, heatwaves are phenomena to be studied, analysed and predicted, while for many older adults, these are experiences they often painfully live through. With this paper, we want to ask what is a heatwave from various theoretical and experiential perspectives, and what can we learn from the connections and disconnections between these multiple approaches.