Anthropology and Climate Change ─ From Actions to Transformations

The first edition of Anthropology and Climate Change (2009) pioneered the study of climate change through the lens of anthropology, covering the relation between human cultures and the environment from prehistoric times to the present. This second, thoroughly revised edition brings the material on this rapidly changing field completely up to date, with major scholars from around the world mapping out trajectories of research and issuing specific calls for action. The new edition
-introduces five new foundational” chapters, which lay out what anthropologists have learned about climate change over the last decade, new theoretical and practical perspectives, insights gleaned from sociology, and international efforts to study and curb climate change;
-presents a series of case studiesboth new cases and old cases viewed with fresh eyeswith the specific purpose of assessing what has been learned over time;
-provides a close look at how climate change is affecting livelihoods, especially in the context of economic globalization and the migration of youth outmigration from rural to urban areas;
-expands coverage to England, the Amazon, the Marshall Islands, Tanzania, and Ethiopia;
re-examines the conclusions and recommendations of the first volume, refining our knowledge of what we do and do not know about climate change and what we can do to adapt.

Susan A. Crate is an associate professor of anthropology in the Department of Environmental Science & Policy at George Mason University. An environmental and cognitive anthropologist, she has worked with indigenous communities in Siberia since 1988. Her recent research has focused on understanding local perceptions and adaptations of Viliui Sakha communities in the face of unprecedented climate change—a research agenda that has expanded to Canada, Peru, Wales, Kiribati, and the Chesapeake Bay. Crate is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and one monograph, Cows, Kin and Globalization: An Ethnography of Sustainability (AltaMira Press, 2006), and she is co-editor of the Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions (Left Coast Press, 2009). Crate also served on the American Anthropology Association’s Task Force on Climate Change.

Mark Nuttall is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. He also holds a visiting position as Professor of Climate and Society at Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland and the Greenland Climate Research Centre at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. He has carried out extensive research in Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Finland and Scotland, and is co-PI of the EU-funded project ICE-ARC (Ice, Climate and Economics—the Arctic Region in Change). He is editor of the landmark three-volume Encyclopedia of the Arctic (Routledge, 2005) and author or editor of many other books.