Storying Multipolar Climes of the Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: Anthropocenic Climate and Shapeshifting Watery Lifeworlds

by Dan Smyer Yü (Editor), Jelle J.P. Wouters (Editor)

Overview

This book initiates multipolar climate/clime studies of the world’s altitudinal and latitudinal highlands with terrestrial, experiential, and affective approaches. Framed in the environmental humanities, it is an interdisciplinary, comparative study of the mutually-embodied relations of climate, nature, culture, and place in the Himalaya, Andes, and Arctic.

Innovation-driven, the book offers multipolar clime case studies through the contributors’ historical findings, ethnographic documentations, and diverse conceptualizations and applications of clime, an overlooked but returning notion of place embodied with climate history, pattern, and changes. The multipolar clime case studies in the book are geared toward deeper, lively explorations and demonstrations of the translatability, interchangeability, and complementarity between the notions of clime and climate. "Multipolar" or "multipolarity" in this book connotes not only the two polar regions and the tectonically shaped highlands of the earth but also diversely debated perspectives of climate studies in the broadest sense. Contributors across the twelve chapters come from diverse fields of social and natural sciences and humanities, and geographically specialize, respectively, in the Himalayan, Andean, and Arctic regions.

The first comparative study of climate change in altitudinal and latitudinal highlands, this will be an important read for students, academics, and researchers in environmental humanities, anthropology, climate science, indigenous studies, and ecology.

Chapters 8 and 9 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/10.4324/9781003347026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032388359
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/23/2023
Series:	Routledge Environmental Humanities
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dan Smyer Yü is Kuige Professor of Ethnology at Yunnan University, China, a Global Faculty Member of the University of Cologne, Germany, and the co-lead of Himalayan University Consortium Thematic Working Group on Environmental Humanities.

Jelle J.P. Wouters is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Royal Thimphu College (RTC), Bhutan, and the chair of the Himalayan Centre for Environmental Humanities (HCEH).

Table of Contents

Multipolar Clime Studies of the Anthropocenic Himalaya, Andes and Arctic: An Introduction PART 1: Climing Earth Summits 1. The Himalaya and Monsoon Asia: Anthropocenic Climes since the 1800s 2. Climing the Andes: Vertical Complementarity, Transhuman Reciprocity, and Climate Change in the Peruvian Highlands 3. Pluriversal Tundra: Storying More than Human Ecologies across Deep, Accelerated, and Troubled times PART 2: Water Climes 4. Eno: Eco-spiritual Water Climes of Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh 5. Water Climing: A Cosmopolitical Ecology of Water in the Southern Peruvian Andes 6. Offerings from the Rivers to the Mountains: Mist and Fog as Connecting Life Force in the Sikkimese Himalayas 7. Life and Loss of a Felt Habitat: Exploring the Haor of Bangladesh PART 3: Bridging Disciplines and Teaching Clime Changes 8. Storylining Climes 9. Not Just the Science: A Transdisciplinary Pedagogy for Cryospheric Climes PART 4: Multispecies Clime Change from the Little Ice Age to the Anthropocene 10. Climing the Great Gorge: The Many Discoveries of the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge 11. Other-than-Human Subjectivities in a Melting World: "Climing" as Ontological Disobedience in the Andes 12. Collapsing Elephant Clime since the Little Ice Age: Climatic Refugees, Animal Zomia and Elephant Modernity in Yunnan Conclusion: Multilateral Clime Studies

Editorial Reviews

"Just as the summit of a mountain gives a new viewpoint, this important collection gives a fresh and critically needed perspective in the environmental humanities. Edited by leading scholars in the field, the chapters collectively and convincingly make a case for ‘multipolar clime studies’ as a key area of research. Grounded in rich case studies and with reflective, careful, and engaging storytelling, this is environmental humanities at its best."

Emily O’Gorman, Associate Professor, Discipline of Geography and Planning, Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia

"This important book aims at revolutionizing climate science. It proffers the concept of ‘clime’ to connect technical insight with human experience. As ecological beings, we are embedded in more-than-human geographies and histories that constantly shape our relationships with water, earth, and air. This book shows that we can face planetary climate crises only by taking such diverse local comprehensions and practices very seriously. A resounding call to both climatology and the environmental humanities, it is a truly pioneering work."

Willem van Schendel, Professor of Modern Asian History, Amsterdam University, The Netherlands

"This is a remarkable multidisciplinary book that initiates new climate studies in multipolar regions. The authors are at once rigorous and imaginative, comprehensive and creative. This book will speak to those interested in the climate challenges and solutions that are both local and global, affective and discursive, culturally aware and practically relevant. An indispensable and path breaking book for specialists and non-specialists alike."

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, USA; Co-author, Journey of the Universe

From the Publisher