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Paper short abstract:

This paper compares climate knowledges amongst Europeans in southeast Africa between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It examines shifts in climate knowledge over time and explores the crystallisation of climate coloniality in the region.

Paper long abstract:

Climate was one amongst a select number of recurring themes in documents detailing the long history of colonial occupation in Mozambique. While writings on local climatic hazards such as drought and floods have received more attention in recent years (e.g. Hannaford and Beck 2021), for the most part African climates were conceptualised and described in terms of their (in)salubrity and perceived implications for colonial expansion. This presentation traces the deep history of such colonialities of climate knowledge in southeast Africa from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. For most of the period the focus is primarily on Portuguese records, but the paper seeks to compare and contrast these with climate knowledges emanating from later (nineteenth century) writings found within the archives of other colonial powers. The implications of climate knowledges for material practices are also considered.

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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, we propose to analyze the discourses on aridity and the "lack of rain" in the processes of building the post-colonial Cape Verdean nation-state. How those discourses constructed through time, spaces and groups in the society have created specific meanings of Nature and Environment?

Paper long abstract:

This contribution is part of an ongoing multidisciplinary and international research project on the Cape Verde archipelago whose aim is to problematize the underway social and cultural dynamics in the face of a long and prolonged drought situation. Although based on the ethnographic method, the project mobilizes the environmental and social history. Indeed, the current water shortage situation, while alarming (the state of Cape Verde has declared a state of hydric emergency in 2020 and food emergency in 2022), is not unprecedented on the scale of a long history. From its earliest days, Cape Verdean society has had to cope with a Sahelian climate and unbridled exploitation of resources by colonial system in which the ressources management is still in some ways rooted.

In this context, we want to analyze more precisely, from an anthropological perspective and in dialogue with history, the discourses (in all their temporalities) on aridity and the "lack of rain" in the processes of building the post-colonial Cape Verdean nation-state. To this end, we will analyze colonial and post-colonial stories about the archipelago's landscapes, observing their continuities and differences. We believe that in order to understand the meaning of the constructions of nature for Cape Verdeans, it is not enough to understand the generic properties of the natural environment. It is also necessary to understand the concepts around the relationship between people and nature, each time specific to groups in the society (institutions, politics, farmers, young people, older people, emigrated people, etc.) and to particular time.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper interrogates the relationships between ‘Western’ and local weather and climate knowledges and material practices in nineteenth century Southern Mozambique drawing on a set of diaries, memoirs, and reports.

Paper long abstract:

This paper interrogates the relationships between ‘Western’ and local weather and climate knowledges and material practices in nineteenth century Southern Mozambique. It draws on a set of diaries, memoirs, and reports written by different observers, found mostly in Portuguese archives and libraries, to examine how the region’s climate, prone to drought and irregular rainfall, was framed by these observers and how their views were shaped by African informants and by different local social and agricultural knowledges and practices. Introducing a transimperial dimension, this paper also seeks to compare these views with climate-related views drawn from sources focusing on the neighbouring regions of Zululand and the Transvaal (present-day KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, in South Africa), which have been the subject of several scholarly works in recent years.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a reconstruction of nineteenth century rainfall variability over present-day Mozambique derived from historical sources.

Paper long abstract:

Rainfall variability posed significant challenges for agrarian communities across the area occupied by present-day Mozambique during the nineteenth century. As a result, accounts of weather conditions and their impacts upon livelihoods, infrastructure and social/cultural activities are widely recorded in historical sources. This paper draws on diaries, memoirs and reports from the region, written by mainly British and Portuguese observers, to present a semi-quantitative reconstruction of rainfall variability spanning the full nineteenth century. It highlights episodes of drought and above-average rainfall, and then draws comparisons with annually-resolved rainfall reconstructions for other parts of southern Africa, to explore subcontinental patterns of nineteenth century rainfall variability.

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Paper short abstract:

The article analyzes the causes which the communities of the Xai-Xai, remain in areas at risk of natural disasters, and show that it results from disputes, conflicts and negotiations around the meanings of risk attributed by communities and the state and distrust communities resettlement processes.

Paper long abstract:

This article examines the resistance of communities to remain in the areas of risk to natural disasters in Xai Xai,

province of Gaza, from the point of view of an arena, where various logic's and strategies on the conception of risk on

natural disasters Confronting, on the one hand, communities and the state and NGOs. The basic assumption is that

regardless of the type of organization or mode of intervention, a resettlement action of communities residing in areas

considered as risk inevitably gives rise to the interaction between two social actors belonging to Different worlds (the

state and communities) whose knowledge standards are regulated by a variety of logic's. The analytical incursion of

this research shows that during the period in which resettlement interventions in Xai-Xai were in effect, they allowed a

series of confrontation, disputes and negotiations between the actors involved in the arena (communities and the

state. In this sense, the research shows that the actors and strategic groups are in constant negotiations, disputes

and confrontation. On the other hand, although the actors were heterogeneous and with differentiated interests, within

the community of Xai-Xai, all have the power to interfere in their context even if it is in an unequal way. It was

evidenced that the actors and strategic groups not only have different interests and resources, but also act according

to different modes of action and cultural points of view of the world.

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Paper short abstract:

With growing awareness of climate change impacts, ecological refuges are increasing becoming an academic discussion in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. Taking the Park as case study, this paper highlights the complexity of ecological refuges issues in the context of environmental activism.

Paper long abstract:

With growing awareness of climate change impacts, ecological refuges are increasing becoming an academic discussion in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. Taking Limpopo Nacional Park as case study, this paper highlights the complexity of ecological refuges issues in the context of environmental activism. It contends that environmental activism represents the resurgence of neocolonial approaches in which local perceptions and experiences are marginalized or ignored for the benefit of conservation and development as understood by the Westerners. Building from an extensive literature review, the paper analyses the reasons behind the displacement of local people to accommodate biodiversity conservation and economic interests. It concludes that forced relocations, loss of subsistence means and other challenges faced by local people in search of alternative forms of living put them under the category of ecological refuges.

Keywords: Limpopo National Park, politics, conservation, neocolonialism, communities, relocations.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses the integration of everyday-life experiences and observations of environmental processes in developing collective responses to climate change. It argues that the understanding and response to the effects of climate change, scientists must decolonize knowledge production.

Paper long abstract:

Despite the growing acknowledgment of the value of Indigenous Local Knowledge (ILK), there is still a persistent lack of inclusion and recognition of indigenous and traditional communities in discussions related to climate change inside and outside academia. This discrepancy between the significance attributed to ILK and its limited incorporation into mainstream climate change dialogues highlights a critical disparity. At the same time, extrapolating insights from a single locale to broader global or regional contexts, given the intricate and diverse nature of climate change effects across different geographical locations, can be challenging. Balancing the depth of local insights with the need for broader relevance while avoiding overgeneralization becomes a central concern. Based on literature reviews, interviews, focus group discussions and forum theatre, the paper analyses various perceptions of climate change effects from KaNyaka Island. It endeavors to further build the case for the integration of everyday-life experiences and observations of environmental processes in developing collective responses to climate change. It argues that the KaNyaka residents are part of local ecologies in which physical and spiritual worlds are entangled in everyday life. It also avers that for a better understanding and response to the adverse effects of climate change on the island, scientists at large must decolonize knowledge production by recognizing the agency of local communities. This relational approach allows the incorporation of worldviews that have been key in sustaining enfolding relationships between people and local ecology. This approach opens the possibility of adaptation to climate change as an embedded socio-environmental phenomenon.

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Paper short abstract:

Climate science needs to integrate the traditional knowledge of local communities in the Africa. Most traditional African societies have developed intricate systems of forecasting weather systems in order to prevent and mitigate natural disasters. Scientists should tap into indigenous knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

Africa contributes least to, but suffers the most from the negative impacts of climate change. The paper underscores the value and continuing relevance of indigenous knowledge for environmental protection and climate change adaptation in Africa. It argues that while Africa stands to gain from global science and international best practices, the continent should search within its own knowledge systems for appropriate ideas and approaches to many of its development challenges. Indigenous knowledge should be fully enlisted in decolonizing climate science. Local communities in different parts of Africa have over the years developed intricate systems of forecasting weather systems in order to prevent and mitigate natural disasters; traditional techniques of soil management, pest and disease control, adopting suitable crop and animal varieties, and so on. The unprecedented scale of climate change today may have undermined the reliability of many traditional indicators for predicting the pattern of climate variability, and techniques for preventing and adapting to climate induced natural disasters. There is therefore a need for those who hold and use traditional knowledge to partner with scientists and other stakeholders in order to co-produce updated knowledge for better climate risk management. Researchers and the development community should tap into the vital and time-tested resource of indigenous knowledge for locally appropriate and culture-sensitive ways to engage with the environment, and adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. Indigenous knowledge may also need to be better documented and preserved in a form that can be readily used by policy makers and development practitioners.