Paper short abstract:

The indigenous communities have a symbiotic relationship with the natural resources which are beneficial for the mutual co-existence. The present study synthesizes traditional knowledge practices to predict, forecast and analyze the early warning systems to adopt and mitigate potential hazards.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of Traditional Knowledge emerged as an attempt to re-empower the local and indigenous interests and voices that have been marginalised by the dominant discourses of science-driven modernisation and development. The indigenous communities have a symbiotic relationship with the forest and natural resources which are beneficial for the mutual co-existence. The role of traditional knowledge in the conservation of ecosystems and sustainable management of natural resources largely depends on the integration of traditional practices within the scientific spheres for developing suitable frameworks for the sustenance of the environment. The present study synthesizes the potential role of traditional practices of indigenous communities for adaptations to climate change with a special emphasis on traditional farming systems, early warning systems and practices of the indigenous communities from the Adilabad district. The early warning system of the indigenous communities has a robust mechanism to predict, forecast, analyze and disseminate required information useful for the early prediction of potential hazards and accordingly to mitigate them with suitable climate change adaptations. The traditional knowledge employed by the indigenous communities in Telangana is linked with the day-by-day livelihood activities of the communities for a strategy to deal with disaster risk reduction. The study adopts qualitative research methodology focusing on exploratory research methods through employing focused group discussion and personal interview-based techniques of data collection techniques. The data collected from four spheres of cultural adaptations involving the biotic knowledge sphere, hydrospheric knowledge sphere, atmospheric knowledge sphere and cosmological knowledge sphere.

Paper short abstract:

I discuss how, in my feature film, Slow Return (2021), I used various strategies, including collaboration and post-production manipulation of images and narrative, to respond to environmental injustice past and present in the "heart" of Europe, thus resituating such concerns from the South.

Paper long abstract:

In making my film, Slow Return (2021), I relied on ethnographic and political practices which I propose to situate and discuss in this presentation. Deciding to make a film about the Rhone River's extremities--a rapidly melting glacier in Switzerland and the river's polluted estuary in southern France--was in itself a conceptual political positioning in response to contemporary environmental conditions and the frequent location of such concerns outside of the North, which I intended to further explore through collaboration with those I had met in the respective locations. Such collaboration resulted in a foregrounding of questions of labor and their legacy in each location, which were represented cinematically using a variety of strategies. In each location, the revelations concerning the connection between labor and environmental change were framed in ways that are divergent from mainstream perspectives, complicating the perspective that frequently positions those who suffer versus those who are responsible. In locating my investigation where I did and pursuing it through ethnographic and collaborative means, I was able to uncover more ambiguous connections between the related phenomena. I propose to discuss two sections of the film that exemplify this strategic ambiguity which I would argue is no less political for the subtlety with which it approaches the environmental question in form and content.

Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper will explore the re-imagination of the future by discussing a co-creative filmmaking project addressing the emergence of solastalgia in relation to overtourism across strategic sites in the UK and in the EU.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper will explore the re-imagination of the future by discussing a co-creative filmmaking project addressing the emergence of solastalgia in relation to overtourism across strategic sites in the UK and in the EU. Solastalgia is the mental health distress produced by environmental change and affecting people while they are still living within their home environment. The paper and the project it is based on will explore under-researched aspects of solastalgia with local communities experiencing a rapid increase in tourism polluting the physical environment, evicting local inhabitants from their homes, pricing them out of their neighbourhoods and villages, and erasing their culture, language, heritage and ways of life.

The paper and the project it draws on combine collaborative filmmaking and citizen science approaches in the fields of green criminology, biology and psychology to create interdisciplinary communities of academic and community-based researchers identifying, analysing and representing environmental problems and future solutions in their own terms. Co-creative filmmaking will act as a strategic catalyst for the creation of new communities of academic and citizen researchers across existing disciplines and social divisions. Most importantly, it will allow local communities re-imagine their future lives by owning the terms of the representation of the environmental issues they face and of the solutions through which they would like to the situation in the future.

Paper short abstract:

Based on the piece Guadiana in Four Movements (2022, 12’) —which combines experimental cinematic language, with impressionist ethnography and data sonification—, this paper will discuss co-creative approaches in interrogating and rendering intelligible the present and future of the Guadiana estuary.

Paper long abstract:

How do people perceive the rapid onset of climate change? How to render environmental transformations tangible and intelligible? How to move beyond catastrophic mainstream representations and patronising narratives while still contemplating the challenges ahead?

In an attempt to address these and other sets of questions, this paper builds on Guadiana in Four Movements, an audio-visual piece that stems from a co-creative endeavour between a multimodal anthropologist and an information designer (authors of the paper), which interrogates the present and future of the transboundary Guadiana estuary. The Guadiana estuary is a fragile and unique ecosystem that divides Portugal and Spain, growingly affected by hyper-intensive agriculture, cattle-grazing, hydro-power and tourism, facing recurrent droughts, salinisation, coastal erosion, biodiversity loss and invasive species.

In its making, authors explored a sensory “impressionist" ethnography (Stoller 1989:154, following van Mannen) that sought to audio-visually capture fleeting manifestations of how climate change is experienced along the estuary. This glimpse was coupled with data sonification based on the IPCC’s climate models for the region, turning the overwhelming data-driven scenarios into a more intelligible experience. Can data sonification offer a “panoptic view from above, or from the future” (Helmreich 2016) as it questions representations of climate change scenarios beyond visualised projection? All these materials were eventually complemented with further archival footage and audio clips.

Trailer of Guadiana in Four Movements: https://vimeo.com/741066105

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COMPLETE FILM FOR CONVENORS ONLY, PLEASE DO NOT SHARE: https://vimeo.com/740012997 p:Limits2022