Living with development and climate change in Northern Ghana: global processes and translocal relations

TY - BOOK

T1 - Living with development and climate change in Northern Ghana

T2 - global processes and translocal relations

AU - Olwig, Mette Fog

N1 - Ph.d.-grad opnået ved mundtlig forsvar 1. oktober 2012 på IGG

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - The threat of global climate change has been at the forefront of 21st century social and political concern with particular emphasis on the likely disproportionate impacts of climate change on the Global South. These impacts will have ramifications for ongoing development interventions, which in turn will lead to new concerns and opportunities for those financing, implementing and receiving this development. Calls for more social science research on climate change multiply as the social dimensions of these climate impacts and development interventions become more apparent. As part of the European Research Council funded research center Waterworlds: Natural Environmental Disasters and Social Resilience in Anthropological Perspective, this thesis responds to these calls by applying a multi-sited ethnographic/geographic perspective on development policy and practice in relation to the threat of global climate change. In the aftermath of severe flooding attributable to climate change in northern Ghana in 2007, it examines how translocal relations are implicated in the changes in development policy and practice that are taking place during this age of climate change anxiety. The dissertation thus investigates how donors, practitioners and recipients conceptualize, approach and are influenced by the growing concerns with climate change. This is done by examining some of the key terms applied in policy and analysis concerning climate change and development, most notably “resilience” and “vulnerability.” The thesis shows how relations between donors, practitioners and recipients cannot be understood as relations of unidirectional power; rather they involve close ties of mutual trust as well as opportunities for building social networks. In fact, for some these relations go well beyond the professional sphere and are of great personal significance. The thesis thereby contributes to recent approaches to development studies that emphasize the importance of focusing on actors as well as discourse in studies of development, while illuminating the multiple ways in which development and climate change concerns are interlinked. The main argument is that relations between and among donors, practitioners and recipients must be investigated in order to better comprehend the processes that influence understandings and practices of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity in localities in the Global South where climate change has become a prominent issue as discourse and as perceived and experienced tangible threat.

AB - The threat of global climate change has been at the forefront of 21st century social and political concern with particular emphasis on the likely disproportionate impacts of climate change on the Global South. These impacts will have ramifications for ongoing development interventions, which in turn will lead to new concerns and opportunities for those financing, implementing and receiving this development. Calls for more social science research on climate change multiply as the social dimensions of these climate impacts and development interventions become more apparent. As part of the European Research Council funded research center Waterworlds: Natural Environmental Disasters and Social Resilience in Anthropological Perspective, this thesis responds to these calls by applying a multi-sited ethnographic/geographic perspective on development policy and practice in relation to the threat of global climate change. In the aftermath of severe flooding attributable to climate change in northern Ghana in 2007, it examines how translocal relations are implicated in the changes in development policy and practice that are taking place during this age of climate change anxiety. The dissertation thus investigates how donors, practitioners and recipients conceptualize, approach and are influenced by the growing concerns with climate change. This is done by examining some of the key terms applied in policy and analysis concerning climate change and development, most notably “resilience” and “vulnerability.” The thesis shows how relations between donors, practitioners and recipients cannot be understood as relations of unidirectional power; rather they involve close ties of mutual trust as well as opportunities for building social networks. In fact, for some these relations go well beyond the professional sphere and are of great personal significance. The thesis thereby contributes to recent approaches to development studies that emphasize the importance of focusing on actors as well as discourse in studies of development, while illuminating the multiple ways in which development and climate change concerns are interlinked. The main argument is that relations between and among donors, practitioners and recipients must be investigated in order to better comprehend the processes that influence understandings and practices of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity in localities in the Global South where climate change has become a prominent issue as discourse and as perceived and experienced tangible threat.

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Living with development and climate change in Northern Ghana

PB - Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen

ER -