People and Climate Change: Vulnerability, Adaptation, and Social Justice

by Lisa Reyes Mason, Jonathan Rigg

Overview

Climate change is a profoundly social and political challenge that threatens the well-being, livelihood, and survival of people in communities worldwide. Too often, those who have contributed least to climate change are the most likely to suffer from its negative consequences and are often excluded from the policy discussions and decisions that affect their lives.

People and Climate Change pays particular attention to the social dimensions of climate change. It closely examines people's lived experience, climate-related injustice and inequity, why some groups are more vulnerable than others, and what can be done about it-especially through greater community inclusion in policy change. The book offers a diverse range of rich, community-based examples from across the "Global North" and "Global South" (e.g., sacrificial flood zones in urban Argentina, forced relocation of United Houma tribal members in the United States, gendered water insecurities in Bangladesh and Australia) while posing social and political questions about climate change (e.g., what can be done about the unequal consequences of climate change by questioning and transforming social institutions and arrangements?). It serves as an essential resource for practitioners, policymakers, and undergraduate-/graduate-level educators of courses in environmental studies, social work, urban studies, planning, geography, sociology, and other disciplines that address matters of climate and environmental change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190886455
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/03/2019
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lisa Reyes Mason, PhD, MSW, is Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee.

Jonathan Rigg, PhD, is Chair of Human Geography in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword
By Michael Sherraden

Chapter 1. Climate Change, Social Justice: Making the Case for Community Inclusion
By Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan Rigg

Part I. Weather
Chapter 2. Pathways to Climate Justice in a Desert Metropolis
By Sharon Harlan, Paul Chakalian, Juan Declet-Barreto, David M. Hondula, and G. Darrel Jenerette

Chapter 3. Water Insecurity in Disaster and Climate Change Contexts: A Feminist Political Ecology View
By Bernadette P. Resurrección

Chapter 4. Older People and Climate Change: Vulnerability and Resilience to Extreme Weather in England
By Katie Oven, Jonathan Wistow, and Sarah Curtis

Part II. Land
Chapter 5. Normalizing Discourses: Urban Flooding and Blaming the Victim in Modern Santa Fe, Argentina
By April Colette

Chapter 6. Reclaiming Land: Adaptation Activities and Global Environmental Change Challenges within Indigenous Communities
By Shanondora Billiot and Jessica Parfait

Chapter 7. Urban Development, Vulnerabilities, and Disasters in Indonesia's Coastal Land Reclamations: Does Social Justice Matter?
By Rita Padawangi

Part III. Comparisons
Chapter 8. Resilience to Climate Change in Uganda: Policy Implications for Two Marginalized Societies
By Shuaib Lwasa, James Ford, Lea Berrang Ford, Didacus Namanya, IHACC, Ambrose Buyinza, and Benon Nabaasa

Chapter 9. Gender, Politics, and Water in Australia and Bangladesh
By Margaret Alston

Chapter 10. The Indigenous Climate-Food-Health Nexus: Indigenous Voices, Stories, and Lived Experiences in Canada, Uganda, and Peru
By Sherilee L. Harper, Lea Berrang-Ford, Cesar Carcamo, Ashlee Cunsolo, Victoria L. Edge, James Ford, Alejandro Llanos, Shuaib Lwasa, and Didacus B. Namanya

Chapter 11. Moving Forward for Community Inclusion and Policy Change
By Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan Rigg

Index

Editorial Reviews

"The volume examines the global North, the global South, and First Nations. The 11 essays are organized into three sections: "Weather," "Land," and "Comparisons" (between vulnerable communities and countries). Each contribution is guided by six carefully crafted questions addressing vulnerability, adaptation, and social justice. The collection's key argument is that the vulnerabilities of communities and countries are either inherited from the past or produced and reproduced by policy decisions, causing an uneven distribution of resources for them to adapt to the changing climate and mitigate its impact. In sum,People and Climate Change is a theoretically dense, empirically rich account of climate change and its varying impacts on communities and countries. Making an invaluable contribution to the literature on disaster studies, this collection will interest students of social work, geography, planning, and environmental studies." — T. Niazi,, CHOICE

"The collection's key argument is that the vulnerabilities of communities and countries are either inherited from the past or produced and reproduced by policy decisions, causing an uneven distribution of resources for them to adapt to the changing climate and mitigate its impact. In sum, People and Climate Change is a theoretically dense, empirically rich account of climate change and its varying impacts on communities and countries. Making an invaluable contribution to the literature on disaster studies, this collection will interest students of social work, geography, planning, and environmental studies." — CHOICE

"People and Climate Change lives up to its title. Real people inhabit this book in the richness of their histories and situations. Real climate impacts affect them now, not in future scenarios. People respond, resist, and survive; they are not victims, but agents. The editors do an elegant job giving order to a furious display of complexity and diversity." — Ben Wisner, PhD, Co-author, At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters

"People and Climate Change illuminates causes of climate-related crises, helping to locate responsibility and identify appropriate response. It shows that climate change is generated and unfolds in a socially unequal world where those who suffer most contributed least. The reader will learn about the integral link between the causes of disaster and responsibility. ... The book is analytically rigorous and provides numerous indications for policy and practice in our changing world. It is essential reading in the Anthropocene." — Jesse Ribot, PhD, MS, Professor, School of International Service, American University; 2018-19 Guggenheim Fellow at the NYU Wagner School and CUNY Graduate Center Anthropology Program

From the Publisher