DeepSummary
The episode features an interview with Sarah E. Vaughan, an anthropologist from UC Berkeley, discussing her book 'Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation.' Vaughan talks about her fieldwork in Guyana in the aftermath of the 2005 floods and how it led her to explore the country's efforts towards climate adaptation and its implications for racial inequalities.
Vaughan delves into the concept of 'apan jaat,' a political ideology that has created divisions between the Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities in the postcolonial nation. She examines how climate adaptation efforts challenge these ideologies and demand newer forms of political thinking and action, particularly in the context of the country's history of plantation slavery and indentured labor.
The discussion also touches on broader themes, such as the role of ethnographic methods in studying climate change, the interplay between local and global perspectives on climate adaptation, and the implications of Vaughan's work for fields like Caribbean studies, environmental humanities, and science and technology studies.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Vaughan's book 'Engineering Vulnerability' explores the implications of climate adaptation efforts in Guyana for racial inequalities and political ideologies, particularly the concept of 'apan jaat' which has divided the Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities.
- The book challenges the traditional assumptions and methods in anthropology, and calls for a reimagining of ethnographic and research methods in the context of climate change, where the focus should be on capturing the interconnectedness between systems and localized case studies.
- Vaughan critiques the assumption that climate adaptation efforts in the Global South are inherently tied to developmentalist ideologies, and highlights the need to understand the diverse political stakes and ideologies at play.
- The book examines the interplay between local and global perspectives on climate adaptation, and the role of ethnographic methods in studying climate change.
- Vaughan's work has implications for fields like Caribbean studies, environmental humanities, and science and technology studies, challenging traditional narratives and encouraging a more nuanced understanding of the intersections between race, environment, and technology.
- The book explores how disasters and climate change events provide an opportunity to reimagine and create new narratives about the past and future, through a different lens.
- Vaughan hopes that future scholarship will move beyond the need to justify the relevance of specific contexts like Guyana, and instead focus on understanding and telling the stories of what is happening in relation to broader global phenomena like climate change.
- The book combines a range of thought-provoking methodological, theoretical, and empirical inquiries, making it a significant contribution to the fields of environmental studies and anthropology.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I think no matter where one works, climate change necessitates a reimagining of ethnographic and research, to your point, methods in general, which is the whole story needs to be told. And so it's not just saying there's an analysis of a system here. Right. And then the localized and the case studies down here. No. In fact, our history of ideas have allowed us to make that separation. And now we have to think, again, analytically about how it is that those two stories, the case study and the system, actually overlap with one another.“ by Sarah Vaughan
- “So intellectually, I think we need to be a bit more generous in terms of reading what the political stakes are on the ground for climate adaptation, which is not always necessarily ones that are wrapped up in ideologies of development. They can be, but they don't have to be.“ by Sarah Vaughan
- “I would hope that scholarship that comes after me doesn't, wouldn't feel, and maybe that's my own insecurity, whatever prove or have to prove that places like this matter to actually telling the story of what is actually happening as opposed to just being an exception or, you know, just the particular case.“ by Sarah Vaughan
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Episode Information
New Books in Environmental Studies
Marshall Poe
7/29/23