Handbook on Climate Change Vulnerability, Environments and Communities: (Elgar Handbooks in Energy, the Environment and Climate Change)

This thought-provoking Handbook explores the spatially and socially differentiated nature of climate change vulnerability. Expert authors discuss the ways that climate change vulnerability is materially and discursively produced as well as the agency, capacity and resilience of affected communities. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book features both leading and emerging international academics, offering diverse perspectives. Chapters delve into the conceptual origins and theoretical debates of climate change vulnerability, as well as existing and emerging responses to vulnerability in different environmental, cultural and social contexts. With a decolonising, Indigenous-led and justice-oriented approach, this innovative Handbook critically reflects on the concept of vulnerability, examining the disparities between the experiences of those of different gendered identities and social positions. Ultimately, this book provides insights into the navigation of communal futures in response to and beyond climate change vulnerability. Students and scholars of environmental sociology, development studies and human, environmental, social and cultural geography will greatly benefit from this Handbook’s integrated perspective. It is also a vital resource for climate change researchers working in the social sciences, as well as practitioners and policymakers working on climate change vulnerability policies and programs.

Table of Contents:
Contents 1 Imagining climate futures differently beyond vulnerability 1 Fiona Miller, Krishna K. Shrestha and Sarah Wright PART I RECONCEPTUALISING VULNERABILITY 2 Agency and the capacity to adapt: addressing gendered vulnerabilities to climate change 20 Nitya Rao 3 Affected by the weather, distracted by the climate: towards an embodied epistemology of time 36 Yvonne Te Ruki-Rangi-o-Tangaroa Underhill-Sem 4 Climate change, migration and livelihoods: responding to or reproducing vulnerability? 53 Ramesh Sunam, Dipak Bishwokarma and Kumar Darjee 5 Neoliberal vulnerabilization and subjectivities in Rwanda and São Tomé and Príncipe 70 Michael Mikulewicz and Karin Helwig 6 Three layers of vulnerability in climatic and environmental crises: the role of cultural caring practices 90 Siri Veland, Camilla Risvoll, Stine Bang Svendsen and Elisabeth Stubberud PART II KNOWING AND CONTESTING VULNERABILITY 7 Decolonising climate change adaptation: insights from Aotearoa New Zealand 120 Meg Parsons 8 Expanding the definition of ‘vulnerability’ through relational, respectful and accountable social science research in the context of climate change 149 Katy Davis, Melanie Flynn, Anuszka Mosurska, Angus Naylor, Ivan Villaverde Canosa and James D. Ford 9 Encountering climate vulnerability through narratives and places 169 Emily Potter and Donna Houston 10 Spatial vulnerability: concept and application for decision-making in the changing climate 187 Garima Jain, Teja Malladi and Joseph Karanja 11 Vulnerability of agricultural communities to climate-related disasters in the coastal Vietnamese Mekong Delta 210 Vo Quoc Thanh, Vo Thi Phuong Linh and Nguyen Hieu Trung PART III RESPONDING TO AND RESISTING VULNERABILITY 12 In search of justice: Social vulnerability, local disaster capitalism and responding to climate change 231 Krishna K. Shrestha, Jagannath Adhikari, Eileen Baldry, Hemant Ojha and Anthony Zwi 13 The role of Indigenous fishers’ knowledge and collective action in reducing vulnerability to climate change 256 Eranga K. Galappaththi 14 NGO responses to climate change vulnerability in China 278 Fengshi Wu, Ju-Han Zoe Wang and Natalie W.M. Wong 15 Replicable and context-specific: how co-production of knowledge can build resilience from the bottom-up to face climate change risk 296 Roxana Bórquez, Marco Billi, Anahí Urquiza, Catalina Amigo and Rodrigo Fuster PART IV FUTURES 16 From climate vulnerability to climate justice: resisting the inevitability of loss, insisting on reparative relations 325 Fiona Miller 17 Voyaging beyond vulnerability: Pacific narratives of climate change mobility 341 Christina Newport 18 From drought to dzud: nomadic wayfinding in a changing climate 362 Navchaa Tugjamba and Greg Walkerden 19 Climate change is colonial (mis)management of Country: wildfires and Indigenous cultural burning in Australia 379 Lauren Tynan and Jessica Riley

About the Author :
Edited by Fiona Miller, School of Communication, Society and Culture, Macquarie University, Krishna K. Shrestha, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales and Sarah Wright, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia

Review :
‘The Handbook on Climate Change Vulnerability, Environments and Communities is a timely collection of 18 chapters, many informed by field-based research from around the world, that fosters understanding of vulnerability to support both formal adaptation efforts and everyday decision-making for people impacted by exacerbating climate challenges. This important collection presents new perspectives on vulnerability from various disciplines and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing a critical engagement with both the concept of vulnerability and processes that construct and perpetuate vulnerability. It is a must-read for people prepared to be challenged while moving towards climate-resilient futures.’ ‘Theoretically grounded, empirically rich and geographically extensive, this critically engaged Handbook offers a trenchant analysis of climate change vulnerability. In drawing on decolonial and Indigenous perspectives, chapters astutely foreground the agency and resilience of affected communities. This stimulating, accessible collection offers new ways of thinking about human-environment relations and amplifies urgent calls for climate justice.’