Climate Change and the Production of Knowledge

In this review essay, I consider two recent works on climate change in the Pacific, one monograph (Engaging Environments in Tonga) by an anthropologist and keeper of Oceanic collections in Oslo, and one edited volume (Managing Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific Region) by a sustainability and climate change management specialist from Hamburg. I situate these two very divergent studies in relation to broader debates and trends in studies and narratives about climate change in the Pacific, focusing in particular on “adaptation” as a priority for research and policy, and on tensions between portrayals of Pacific peoples as respectively creative and resilient, versus as vulnerable and in need of rescue by Western science. In doing so, the divergent epistemologies that are at the core of the relations between indigenous and exogenous knowledge are highlighted, at the same time questioning enduring power dynamics and whether indigeneity and climate change research can actually contribute to knowledge production.

评论文章

气候变化与知识生产

关键词：气候变化，太平洋， 知识，世界观，适应，韧性。

本评论文章讨论了两部关于太平洋地区气候变化的著作，一本是来自于挪威的人类学家和大洋洲收藏品管理者的专著《关注汤加的环境》，另一部是由汉堡的可持续性和气候变化管理专家编著的《太平洋地区气候变化适应的管理》。我将这两个差异很大的研究与太平洋地区气候变化研究和叙事中更广阔的讨论和趋势相联系，作为研究和政策优先项而特别聚焦于”适应”，以及将太平洋地区人民分别描绘成富有创造力和韧性和脆弱并需要西方科学拯救的两种形象之间的矛盾。 在此过程中，本文凸显了处于本土知识与外来知识之间关系的核心的不同的认识论，同时质疑了持久的权力关系以及研究本土性和气候变化是否能实际上为知识生产做出贡献。

Translated from English by Li Guo