Paper short abstract:

In 2021, I was invited by the City of Paris to participate in a group of experts to prepare the Paris 2050 climate plan. I will question the conditions of the proposed debate on the production of futures, and reflect on the proposed working method.

Paper long abstract:

In 2021, I was invited by the City of Paris to participate in a group of experts made up of researchers from different disciplines working with stakeholders as part of the preparation of Paris 2050 climate plan. Their aim is to produce a series of notebooks summarizing the state of scientific knowledge at the regional level on climate extremes and hazards, territorial vulnerabilities and social dynamics, etc. I was asked to contribute to the notebook on the working classes and the socio-environmental transition in Paris and its suburbs. This notebook takes a transversal approach to the problem of the vulnerability of a specific category of the population, the working classes, to climate change, due on the one hand to their over-exposure to climatic hazards and on the other to their stigmatization.

The aim of this communication is to present the notebook's production process with a view to questioning the methods of implementation and the role of interdisciplinarity and relations with the city's departments in the co-writing of an action scenario aiming to propose a sustainable future for Paris in an expected context of harsher urban living conditions and changing lifestyles.

Firstly, I will examine how the terms of the proposed debate on the production of futures as part of a scenario-building exercise to adapt a territory to climate change shapes the debate. Secondly, I will reflect on the proposed working method and the impact of the scientific and professional multidisciplinarity of the players involved in the production of scenariis.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the role of anthropology in interdisciplinary applied research on drought. Due to its hybrid position between various types of knowledge, its institutionally recognised expertise and reflexivity, anthropology can stimulate deliberation and community climate futures co-production.

Paper long abstract:

Climate futures depend on effective climate change policies. At a global level, system change is needed. At the local level, citizen involvement is essential. The ability and willingness of the public to respond to the climate crisis can be strengthened through the fostering of deliberative democracy (Willis, Curato, Smith 2022), which can help to increase the resilience of complex socio-natural systems, enhance conditions for socio-ecological transition and generate more-than-human solidarities.

The paper discusses how anthropology - as the study “with“ people - can contribute to promoting sustainability and societal transformation by encouraging stakeholders to participate in deliberative decision-making. It draws on the results of an interdisciplinary applied research project Stories of Drought, aimed at strengthening the citizens' involvement in landscape planning and management in drought-prone rural regions of the Czech Republic, showing a high level of distrust in the state and its institutions. The paper introduces a novel interdisciplinary mixed-method approach to future landscape scenario development, combining research-driven and participatory approaches and integrating qualitative ethnographic inquiry and imaginary with quantitative future projections of climatology and geography.

I argue, that anthropology, due to its hybrid position between different types of knowledge (scientific/local), its institutionally recognised expertise, and its inherent reflexivity, which enables the ethnographer to establish herself as a trustworthy ally through her transparent and humble presence in the field, has the potential to help overcome distrust, reduce asymmetries in power and knowledge, and stimulate public deliberation and community co-production of climate futures.

Paper short abstract:

Our ways of doing anthropology are increasingly out of step with the need to attend to planetary entanglements. Drawing on three stories of encountering and acting on climate change in the UK, we re-conceive anthropology as a worldly discipline grounded in commitments to mediation and displacement.

Paper long abstract:

As anthropology expands to account for an ever-growing range of other-than-human entanglements the practice of anthropology itself has come to appear increasingly limited. Anthropological practice remains widely understood as a process of research and representation, grounded in the demarcated spaces of the field and academy, respectively.

Stepping back, and unpacking what anthropology has to offer within a world that so often denies its constitutive entanglements, we argue that research and representation can be understood as particular ways of enacting broader, underlying disciplinary commitments to mediation and displacement. Reconceiving anthropology firmly in these terms enables us to approach anthropology as a far more worldly practice, extending beyond the limits of field sites and the academy.

To unpack what it means to pursue anthropology as a practice of mediation and displacement, we explore three examples from our own entanglements surrounding climate change in the UK. In London we tell the story of a ‘just transition’ campaign, where our involvement helped activists to mediate between ‘expert’ knowledge and grassroots struggles, allowing new alliances to emerge. In Manchester we retrace an ‘energy walk’, that connected policymakers, activists and residents to neglected histories where energy was held as a common good. And, across both cities, we discuss our work as part of a multi-disciplinary collective, using sensors and data visualizations to attempt to catalyse collective action. Across each of these cases, we illustrate anthropology as a practice of mediating between different worlds, mutually displacing established ways of being to allow new futures to emerge.

Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses how to shape the climate future of the city, which boasts of green awards, projects, and the work of green initiatives, but refuses to involve its residents in decision-making beyond the legal requirements. How can we contribute to transformative change in such an environment?

Paper long abstract:

In the summer of 2022, at the end of the earliest heat wave in the history of Ljubljana, urban green initiatives, organizations advocating for sustainability, climate change and public spaces, as well as researchers (including myself) sent a public call to the Mayor of Ljubljana to adopt a "concrete, coherent and ambitious strategy" that would be the basis for an effective fight against heat in the "93% green" city (as estimated for Ljubljana by the Green Destinations standards). Ljubljana was named European Green Capital 2016 and has since been building its image through green projects and commitments (e.g., Zero Waste Capital and EU Mission for 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030). The letter prompted a press conference where the mayor presented the implementation of green measures in energy, digitalisation, greening, agriculture, mobility and water supply. Still, suggestions for citizens' active involvement in the strategy's preparation fell on deaf ears: "The mayor just doesn't like participation".

This paper draws on a decade of ethnographic research on green participatory initiatives and auto-ethnography gathered during the involvement in the city’s recent Mission 100 activities. It discusses the following questions: Which initiatives managed to establish at least a minimum cooperation with the municipality, and why did they succeed? When citizens get involved in top-down activities, how do they communicate their visions of the future? What approaches can we take to make anthropologists interlocutors of a city administration and to empower residents to participate in decision-making processes toward collective transformations?

Paper short abstract:

My contribution focuses on a methodological reflection to discuss the potentials and challenges of interweaving anthropology and interventions. Local negotiations about forest futures in two case studies in Germany constitute the ethnographic background.

Paper long abstract:

Forests are currently undergoing unprecedented change. Against the backdrop of climate change and its manifold negative impacts on forests, conflicts on how to manage and conserve these ecologically, economically, socially and culturally significant landscapes in the future are intensifying. A deeper understanding of how different actors envision the future of forests could contribute to addressing this issue.

In my contribution I show ethnographic insights from an inter- and transdisciplinary project on cooperative processing of forest-related negotiation processes in the context of climate change in Germany. In particular, I investigate the relation between future imaginaries and (un)certainties in negotiation processes about forest futures. By means of ethnographic fieldwork in two local case studies in Germany, I elaborate on how different actors imagine forest futures, which forest-related (un)certainties they perceive, which practices they use to counter them and to what extent these aspects have an impact on the negotiation processes.

In order to explore these questions, I examine the application of roundtables and conflict mediation in our project from an anthropological perspective. I complement these intervention methods with participant observation and go-alongs.

My contribution will focus on a methodological reflection to discuss the potentials and challenges of interweaving anthropology and intervention methods in the context of conflicts. This reflection is important in order to show to what extent interventional anthropological approaches can be fruitful in the context of negotiations over futures and to provide inspiration for upcoming research projects that address contested futures and at the same time claim to shape these.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores grassroot perspectives of graffiti artists and environmentalists on sustainable futures in Sudan, a country in social upheaval at the frontline of climate change. The study applies a co-creative methodology of future visioning exercises and the use of 360° video for documentation

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on transformative anthropological interventions in the ongoing ontological turn from anthropocentric extractivism to life-sustaining and more-than-human perspectives for a sustainable future. It describes a co-creative methodology that brings to the surface grassroots perspectives on human-environment relations and sustainable futures to better understand how these perspectives help to the undoing of simplistic apocalyptic or utopian narratives. Sudan is at the frontlines of climate change. Temperatures are predicted to rise by over 3 degrees Celsius by 2060. The country faces challenges such as erratic rainfall, droughts, floods, dust storms and heat waves. Since 1977, there has been a growing movement of environmentalists in Sudan, including academics and activists. In 2019, they joined the Sudanese revolution and even after being displaced by war, Sudanese environmentalists remain active internationally. This study explores the perspectives of young Sudanese environmental activists and graffiti artists on a sustainable future to provide a broader outlook on the ongoing changes on a political and social level. How can revolutionary Sudanese artists and environmentalists work together to develop visions for a sustainable Sudan? Using participatory methods, the study documented Sudanese revolutionary street art, conducted ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in 2022, and brought together Sudanese graffiti artists and environmentalists for a workshop on sustainable future visions for Sudan. The workshop was documented with 360° video to describe and capture the group dimensions, interaction and discussions during the future workshop. In addition, the creative process of producing visionary murals was documented as a co-creative outcome of the workshop.

Paper short abstract:

Climate change adaptation often seeks technocratic top-down responses and mainstream approaches to well-being. Insights from our interdisciplinary work with stakeholders in Europe and the South Pacific show how bottom-up approaches can reconfigure more plural paths for the future.

Paper long abstract:

Climate change adaptation often aims to turn adverse effects into liveable futures by drafting technocratic top-down responses. Therein lies the tendency of thinking in unidimensional ways that reduce well-being to habitable environments. In our research, we encountered examples of people living in constantly shifting water-land-scapes where they work with the unpredictable in flexible ways, but – most importantly for their own adaptive purposes – aiming at thriving rather than surviving. Habitability is not sufficient, as those affected by climate change reconfigure the spaces they inhabit. In the Global South, atoll-islands are becoming assemblages of nature technoscapes. In Europe, and due to the scarcity of water in continental rivers and lakes, discussions about centralised water management are becoming increasingly difficult, fostering new relations to water. In these areas, efforts are being made towards making plural liveable futures. Single solutions are being contested and locals explore and demand ways of self-determination and agency to establish their own diverse adaptation pathways. We suggest examining these slippery roads, the interstices of seemingly clear-cut solutions. What does this mean for the definition of future well-being, and how can these solutions get past the reductive conceptualization of habitability? Giving insights into our interdisciplinary work and discussions with stakeholders from Europe and the South Pacific, we reflect on how in our ethnographic work we can further think about the interstices for developing plural paths for the future.

Paper short abstract:

When involved in the shaping of climate futures, anthropologists must attend to who decides what is a desirable climate future, and who gets chosen to populate it. Contextualisation can undo simplistic utopian narratives, and proffer solutions that make sense to a place and those that live there.

Paper long abstract:

The prevalent narrative regarding coal depicts it as inherently unsustainable. However, in the Arctic town of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard where I have conducted research, residents argue differently. The town was originally founded to extract coal, but now Longyearbyen’s economy is in transition from coal mining to tourism and science at the Norwegian government’s insistence. Furthermore, rather than burning locally-found coal for energy, the government has insisted the island imports diesel. This is in an attempt to make Longyearbyen a “showcase of sustainability” for the world. Yet simultaneously, there is a housing shortage in Longyearbyen, and the Norwegian government is pushing for the Norwegianisation of Longyearbyen’s population. Furthermore, residents cannot propagate crops and so food is imported. However, the Norwegian government has built the Global Seed Vault on Svalbard, which houses seeds from around the world in case of catastrophe, and tourists track non-native seeds, with many successfully germinating on Svalbard. Due to the dissonance between the state narrative and actions and local opinions and experiences, I wish to underscore the importance of examining who decides what is a desirable climate future, and who gets chosen to populate it. Through attending to local specifics, and seeking to explore contradictions, we can undo simplistic utopian narratives in regard to the creation of climate futures, and proffer solutions that make sense to a place and those that live there. For Longyearbyen, coal can be argued as part of a desirable climate future, contradicting dominant imaginings that paint a coal-free future.

Paper short abstract:

Oceans research is called upon to help guide environmental transitions towards cleaner futures. We explore two oceanographic research expeditions, with different epistemic foci, exploring how they perform complex (dis)engagements with potential environmental futures in their “ship” floor practices.

Paper long abstract:

Environmental transitions are simultaneously seen as major challenges and potential solutions for life in the anthropocene. With the current UN decade of ocean science, oceanographic research has been given a lead role in addressing these transitions. We ethnographically explore two oceanographic research expeditions, one geological and one biological, yet both concerned with doing and intervening in climate and environmental futures. During the geological research expedition, in the deep Atlantic, scientists studied the potential of deep sea canyons as natural laboratories for investigating sediment plumes similar to ones created in deep sea mining, as the deep sea is seen as the last frontier to extract rare minerals dubbed necessary for the clean energy transition. The biological expedition, off the coast of northern Scotland, tried to understand how almost-extinct biogenic mussel reefs can be transplanted onto the foundations of wind farms in the North Sea, a move to “rewild” it and thus induce increased ecosystem services (food for human consumption and larger CO2 uptake and burial). In our paper we contrast how epistemic differences onboard a research vessel perform multiple and complex (dis)engagements with potential environmental futures: The untold environmental disasters brought on by deep sea mining against the committed scientific work to mitigate damage; and the need to understand the ecology of rapidly disappearing ecosystems against the call to rewild them for further extraction by so-called ecosystem services. Rather than an uncompromising critique or a complacent testimonial, we suggest to embrace the epistemic, practical and political complexities of environmental futures.