Overview

Until now, the growing body of work on environmental anthropology has largely ignored the unavoidable impact of global capitalism on the environment and the extent to which capital itself is a key driver of climate change. Climate, Capitalism and Communities focuses explicitly on that nexus, examining the injustices and inequalities - as well as the activist responses - that have arisen as a result, and the contradictions between the imperatives of exponential economic growth, and those of environmental sustainability, and society as a whole. Bringing an innovative, ethnographic toolkit to bear on a crisis that is at once global and highly localised, the authors shift attention away from the consequences of climate change, to a focus on the social relations and power structures that continue to prevent effective action.

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9780745339566

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Presenting evidence from places as diverse as the Arctic, Mongolia and Peru, this volume testifies to the growing anthropological awareness of the link between global capitalism and climate change' -- Hans A Baer, author of 'Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System'

'This excellent analysis of climate change and global 'overheating' is underpinned by studies that demonstrate how it is experienced in diverse cultural and geographical contexts. Every researcher, politician and activist seeking ways to avert ecological and social meltdown should read this book' -- Veronica Strang, author of 'Water: Nature and Culture' 'Presenting evidence from places as diverse as the Arctic, Mongolia and Peru, this volume testifies to the growing anthropological awareness of the link between global capitalism and climate change' -- Hans A Baer, author of 'Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System'

'This extraordinary volume spotlights the accelerating self-consuming metabolism of fossil-fueled modernity that is producing our overheated world. But it also reveals how the experience of overheating, and the optimal strategies for deceleration, vary by group and place. This is a must-read collection for anthropologists critically engaged with the Anthropocene trajectory' -- Dominic Boyer, author of 'The Life Informatic: Newsmaking in the Digital Era' 'This excellent analysis of climate change and global 'overheating' is underpinned by studies that demonstrate how it is experienced in diverse cultural and geographical contexts. Every researcher, politician and activist seeking ways to avert ecological and social meltdown should read this book' -- Veronica Strang, author of 'Water: Nature and Culture' 'Presenting evidence from places as diverse as the Arctic, Mongolia and Peru, this volume testifies to the growing anthropological awareness of the link between global capitalism and climate change' -- Hans A Baer, author of 'Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System'

Author Information

Astrid B. Stensrud is Associate Professor at the Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder. She is the co-editor of Climate, Capitalism and Communities (Pluto, 2019) and a contributor to Waterworlds (Berghahn, 2016) and Identity Destabilised (Pluto, 2016). Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962 – 2024) was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He was among the most highly cited anthropologists of his generation, and his classic and accessible textbook Small Places, Large Issues remains a cornerstone in anthropology courses. His later books, including Overheating, tackled the important issue of climate change within the discipline.

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