Description:
This book explores local perceptions of climate change through ethnographic encounters with the men and women who live at the front line of climate change in the lower Himalayas.
It will be of great interest to students and scholars of the anthropology of climate change, environmental sociology and rural development.
Review Quotes:
''In this sensitive, intimate ethnography, Aase J. Kvanneid approaches the compelling immediacy of global climate change from multiple perspectives gathered during fieldwork in a Himalayan foothill village. Her book illuminates diverse ways that local traditions and interpretations interact with outside expertise as human beings confront planetary crisis.''
Ann Grodzins Gold, Emerita Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Professor of Anthropology, Syracuse University.
"India's fundamental problem with climate change is also the world's fundamental problem. Research tends to relegate the ordinary man and woman to a reductionist oblivion in which they become hapless victims, unable to see the larger picture or be agents of their own destiny. Kvanneid's study helps us rethink this image, and this volume constitutes an important contribution to our collective conversation".
Arild Engelsen Ruud, Professor of South Asia Studies and Head of Research at the South Asia Department at the University of Oslo.
"In this probing work, Aase J. Kvanneid offers a compelling and richly textured ethnography of climate change from a small village in the Shivalik Hills, India. The book powerfully weaves discussions about broader political-economic transformations alongside detailed accounts of people's everyday experience of ecological crisis in this marginalized region of South Asia. The beautiful and moving book provides a subtle and important contribution to the new anthropology of the Anthropocene, and is essential reading for everyone interested in the radical changes posed by the climate crisis in South Asia and beyond"
Ursula Münster, Associate Professor and Director, Oslo School of Environmental Humanities, University of Oslo.