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Victims or Masters of Adaptation? How the Idea of Adaptation to Climate Change Travels Up and Down to a Village in Simanjiro, Maasailand Northern Tanzania

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  3. Vol. 68, Issue 1
  4. pp. 21–41

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de Wit, S. Victims or Masters of Adaptation? How the Idea of Adaptation to Climate Change Travels Up and Down to a Village in Simanjiro, Maasailand Northern Tanzania. Sociologus, 68(1), 21-41. https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.68.1.21
de Wit, Sara "Victims or Masters of Adaptation? How the Idea of Adaptation to Climate Change Travels Up and Down to a Village in Simanjiro, Maasailand Northern Tanzania" Sociologus 68.1, , 21-41. https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.68.1.21
de Wit, Sara: Victims or Masters of Adaptation? How the Idea of Adaptation to Climate Change Travels Up and Down to a Village in Simanjiro, Maasailand Northern Tanzania, in: Sociologus, vol. 68, iss. 1, 21-41, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.68.1.21
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Victims or Masters of Adaptation? How the Idea of Adaptation to Climate Change Travels Up and Down to a Village in Simanjiro, Maasailand Northern Tanzania

de Wit, Sara

Sociologus, Vol. 68 (2018), Iss. 1 : pp. 21–41

7 Citations (CrossRef)

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Article Details

Publisher Name
Duncker & Humblot
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.68.1.21
Language
English
Pages
21
Keywords

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Author Details

de Wit, Sara, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford. 64 Banbury Road, OX2 6PN, Oxford

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Abstract

Abstract

Moving beyond objectivist stances that for a long time have dominated the climate change research agenda, this paper explores an alternative ontology of adaptation. By tracing a travelling idea about ‘Adaptation to Climate Change’(ACC) along multiple encounters and negotiation arenas, this paper wishes to explore the epistemological and political challenges that are entailed by this narrative in the making. It focuses on the power dynamics and (ontological) politics that are revealed by the translation that characterize the emergence of this nascent discourse in Tanzania. It is argued that this travelling idea – which is continuously co-produced and reshaped by varying actors in its journey to the ‘local’ level – brings longstanding tensions to the fore that exist between Maasai agro-pastoralists and the Tanzanian government. Whereas the government portrays the pastoralists in the debate both as victims as well as perpetrators of a changing climate, the grassroots organizations and NGOs representing the pastoral communities, contend that the Maasai are rather masters of adaptation. It will be shown how the ACC paradigm is wholeheartedly embraced by several actors along its journey until it reaches the rural village of Terrat, where it is by and large rejected. By shining light on these translation practices, it is argued that in face of the emergence and increasing dissemination of climate change discourses around the world, adaptation should not solely be treated as a collective human response to (external) changing bio-physical stimuli, but also as an integrated process that cannot be detached from adaptations to its discursive formations.

Keywords: Adaptation paradigm, travelling idea, competing knowledge orders, Maasai, northern Tanzania.

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