Research Focus

Whereas climate change has been discussed as a driver for global cultural homogenization and the appearance of “world cultures”, there is evidence of local cultural differences in perceiving and handling climate change, leading to local limits of adaptation and inadequate transfer of climate change-related knowledge and practices. Thus, even when similar scenarios exist, the cultural dimensions indicate local differences in perceiving and handling climate change emerge. From that point of view, implementing so-called “best-practice” adaptation strategies might not simply work in different cultural contexts. This is a crucial challenge for current planning-oriented research on climate change adaptation because it does not understand well how local/regional differences in ‘climate-cultures’ are rooted in policy planning. What is required in response to these challenges is an understanding of how similarities and differences in ‘climate-cultures’ have been evolving globally and locally, depending on adaptation cultures.

Revisiting Climate-Cultures will address these challenges by:

1. Assessing methodology and discourses to characterize the climate-cultures (diversity, intensity, integrity, and replicability), and planning-institutional developments (in terms of policy mandates, capacity, and resources) under future climate conditions.
2. Developing an international consortium (Cultures of Adaptation Network). In this network, we want to explore how far local-led adaptations are interconnected with locally shared forms of cultural knowledge, socio-ecological and planning-institutional developments in climate-vulnerable communities, and how it differs intergenerationally, intersectional and translocally.

Research Objectives

Revisiting Climate-Cultures has established the following research objectives:

1. New understandings of how local-led knowledge and adaptation practices can influence planning-institutional development in the selected climate-vulnerable countries, i.e., adaptation knowledge and practice labs.
2. Dialogue and learning within and across affected communities and among professional societies, as well as between communities and professionals, to improve socio-political awareness and tactics.