July 6, 2016

Abstract: People, Nature, and Climate: Heterogeneous Networks in Narratives and Practices about Climate Change by Beatriz E. Cid-Aguayo

:::::: Abstract ::::::

People, Nature, and Climate: Heterogeneous Networks in Narratives and Practices about Climate Change 
by Beatriz E. Cid-Aguayo

A Latourian actor-network analysis of social narratives about climate change in the city of Concepción and the strategies of collective adaptation to climate change deployed by two social groups shows a difference in people’s relationships with nature. The discourses of climate change in the city view it as a backdrop about which not much can be done and hold more powerful others responsible for causing it and for dealing with it. In contrast, in the settlement of Agüita de la Perdiz and among the peasants of the agro-ecological movement in the Bío-Bío Region, climate change is not simply a backdrop but a threat to their quality of life and subsistence, an actant that brings agency to their socio-techno-natural networks, and they have developed measures to control its potential destructive effects.
Un análisis actor-red latouriano de narrativas sociales sobre el cambio climático en la ciudad de Concepción y las estrategias de adaptación colectiva al cambio climático empleadas por dos grupos sociales muestran una diferencia en las relaciones de las personas con la naturaleza. Los discursos sobre el cambio climático en la ciudad lo presentan como un trasfondo sobre el cual no se puede hacer mucho, y declaran responsables a otros más poderosos por causarlo y por tratarlo. En contraste, en el asentamiento de Agüita de la Perdiz y entre los campesinos del movimiento agro-ecológico en la Región Bío-Bío, el cambio climático no es simplemente un trasfondo sino una amenaza a su calidad de vida y subsistencia, un activador que otorga agencia a sus redes socio-tecno-naturales, y han elaborado medidas para controlar sus potenciales efectos destructivos.

James Lovelock (2006: 5–6) points out that scientists did not acknowledge the Earth as a self-regulating entity until the Amsterdam Declaration of 2001 and that many of them “still . . . cling to their nineteenth- and twentieth-century view . . . of a planet made of dead inert rock with abundant life aboard, passengers on its journey through space and time.” He continues:
Even if we …

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Latin American Perspectives
July 2016 vol. 43 no. 4 Abstract, pages 12-28

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