Paper short abstract:

This paper mobilizes tinkering as a new research posture to explore the relationship between digital technologies and climate insecurities in the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed contribution explores how forms of tinkering with emerging digital technologies could open new avenues for studying the security implications of climate change. In the field of climate security, the term "tinkering" often carries a whiff of danger. For many, the idea of "tinkering with nature" is a symbol of the human hubris and Prometheanism that have led to the current global crisis of the Anthropocene. This critique is commonly directed toward climate- or bio-engineering experiments but is increasingly being applied to the use of AI and other digital technologies in the governance of climate risks as well.

In this explorative paper, I provide another, affirmative reading of tinkering with technology in the area of climate security. I hold that existing imaginaries of climate (in)security suffer from a "status-quo" bias, projecting existing Western discourses of insecurity into an uncertain future. Progressive alternatives, such as ecological or posthuman notions of security, exist as academic concepts but hardly find their way into political debates or bureaucratic practices on climate change and security. In the paper, I explore how tinkering with digital technologies, including digital maps/GIS, data visualization, agent-based models, or generative AI, could lead a way out of this impasse. In this reading, digital technologies would be less of an instrument for predicting, preventing, or managing climate risks. Instead, they will be approached as "thinking-tools" to develop more imaginative and open future scenarios, and to speculate about potentials for agency amid the unfolding planetary crisis.