Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State

The Rising Tide

Peter Rudiak-Gould (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

226 Seiten

2013
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-415-83249-6 (ISBN)

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The citizens of the Marshall Islands have been told that climate change will doom their country, and they have seen confirmatory omens in the land, air, and sea. This book investigates how grassroots Marshallese society has interpreted and responded to this threat as intimated by local observation, science communication, and Biblical exegesis. With grounds to dismiss or ignore the threat, Marshall Islanders have instead embraced it; with reasons to forswear guilt and responsibility, they have instead adopted in-group blame; and having been instructed that resettlement is necessary, they have vowed instead to retain the homeland. These dominant local responses can be understood as arising from a pre-existing, vigorous constellation of Marshallese ideas termed "modernity the trickster": a historically inspired narrative of self-inflicted cultural decline and seduction by Euro-American modernity. This study illuminates islander agency at the intersection of the local and the global, and suggests a theory of risk perception based on ideological commitment to narratives of historical progress and decline.

Peter Rudiak-Gould is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University.

Introduction: A Scientific Prophecy 1. Modernity the Trickster: From First Contact to the Postcolonial State 2. Climate Change Dawns On Marshall Islanders 3. Pervasive Decline and the Eminent Believability of Climate Change 4. Seductive Modernity, In-Group Blame, and the Mitigation Movement 5. Modernity’s Second Coming: The Unsettling Issue of Resettlement. Conclusion: Making Sense of Climate Change.

Erscheint lt. Verlag	18.9.2013
Reihe/Serie	Routledge Studies in Anthropology
Zusatzinfo	2 Tables, black and white; 1 Line drawings, black and white; 11 Halftones, black and white; 12 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	610 g
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-415-83249-7 / 0415832497
ISBN-13	978-0-415-83249-6 / 9780415832496
Zustand	Neuware