Entanglements of climate change and conflict: climate change adaptation in post-war Sri Lanka
Lead Research Organisation:
School of Oriental and African Studies
Department Name: Anthropology and Sociology
Abstract
This project is about climate change, conflict and how they are entangled in post-war Sri Lanka. There are currently no ethnographic studies of the social life of climate change, or the process of adaptation, in communities affected by civil conflict. This study will address this through ethnographic research of a climate change adaptation intervention in Sri Lanka's Dry Zone - a site of unresolved ethnic conflict, already experiencing the effects of climate change. This research will form links between the anthropology of climate change, theorisations of risk and danger (Beck 2007; Douglas 1992), analyses of Sri Lanka's 'ethnic' conflict (Tambiah 1986) and literature considering the politicisation of disaster (Simpson 2014). In doing so, it seeks to move beyond existing ethnographic accounts of 'living in denial' in the West (Norgaard 2011) and culturally-bound interpretations of climate change in the Global South (Lipset 2011; Rudiak-Gould 2013).
Research Questions
1) How is the risk of climate change perceived by Tamil and Sinhalese Sri Lankans in the wake of a violent conflict? 2) To what extent will ethnic conflict coalesce around, or be dissipated by, the process of adaptation? 3) In what ways will the legacies of the conflict shape adaptation policy?
Methodology and Timetable of Research
Mixed-ethnic communities in the Dry Zone that are currently being targeted by a $38,000,000 intervention will form the context of this study. This intervention was initiated by the Sri Lankan government and is co-funded by the Green Climate Fund and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Broadly, it aims to 'strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers in the Dry Zone to climate variability and extreme events' (UNDP 2017), with emphasis on the necessity of inter-ethnic co-operation.
Year 1
I have been refining my research questions and receiving further methods training during the MA in Anthropological Research Methods at SOAS. I have also been learning Sinhala and Tamil.
Years 2-3
12 months of fieldwork in Sri Lanka will deploy the following methods, corresponding to the research questions outlined above.
1) After two months of language training in Colombo, I will spend seven months conducting ethnographic fieldwork in two communities targeted by the intervention: one in the district of Anuradhapura, where the Sinhalese form the ethnic majority, and one in Vavuniya, where the Tamils do. Through participant observation of daily life and in-depth interviews with Sinhalese and Tamil villagers, research will focus on individual and collective memories of the conflict, the history of rural development in the area, perceptions of the changing climate, and the ways in which memories of past traumas shape the perception of climate-based risk.
2) By taking part in co-operative community adaptation activities and studying their management within the community, the extent to which ethnic tension coalesces around the process of adaptation will be studied ethnographically.
3) The remaining three months will be spent conducting participant observation of policymaking in Colombo. I will attend workshops and roundtable events for environmental NGOs and policymakers, study policy documents, and interview local environmental activists and climate scientists.
Years 3-4
I will write-up my findings and disseminate them to stakeholders in Colombo and the wider development community. The findings of this study will be of direct relevance to local policymakers such as the Sri Lankan government's Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment, local implementing NGOs and international development agencies (IWMI, Green Climate Fund, United Nations Development Programme). I will engage these actors during the design phase, with the aim that they become stakeholders in the project and implements its finings.
Research Questions
1) How is the risk of climate change perceived by Tamil and Sinhalese Sri Lankans in the wake of a violent conflict? 2) To what extent will ethnic conflict coalesce around, or be dissipated by, the process of adaptation? 3) In what ways will the legacies of the conflict shape adaptation policy?
Methodology and Timetable of Research
Mixed-ethnic communities in the Dry Zone that are currently being targeted by a $38,000,000 intervention will form the context of this study. This intervention was initiated by the Sri Lankan government and is co-funded by the Green Climate Fund and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Broadly, it aims to 'strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers in the Dry Zone to climate variability and extreme events' (UNDP 2017), with emphasis on the necessity of inter-ethnic co-operation.
Year 1
I have been refining my research questions and receiving further methods training during the MA in Anthropological Research Methods at SOAS. I have also been learning Sinhala and Tamil.
Years 2-3
12 months of fieldwork in Sri Lanka will deploy the following methods, corresponding to the research questions outlined above.
1) After two months of language training in Colombo, I will spend seven months conducting ethnographic fieldwork in two communities targeted by the intervention: one in the district of Anuradhapura, where the Sinhalese form the ethnic majority, and one in Vavuniya, where the Tamils do. Through participant observation of daily life and in-depth interviews with Sinhalese and Tamil villagers, research will focus on individual and collective memories of the conflict, the history of rural development in the area, perceptions of the changing climate, and the ways in which memories of past traumas shape the perception of climate-based risk.
2) By taking part in co-operative community adaptation activities and studying their management within the community, the extent to which ethnic tension coalesces around the process of adaptation will be studied ethnographically.
3) The remaining three months will be spent conducting participant observation of policymaking in Colombo. I will attend workshops and roundtable events for environmental NGOs and policymakers, study policy documents, and interview local environmental activists and climate scientists.
Years 3-4
I will write-up my findings and disseminate them to stakeholders in Colombo and the wider development community. The findings of this study will be of direct relevance to local policymakers such as the Sri Lankan government's Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment, local implementing NGOs and international development agencies (IWMI, Green Climate Fund, United Nations Development Programme). I will engage these actors during the design phase, with the aim that they become stakeholders in the project and implements its finings.
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES/P000592/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2027 | |||
| 2213800 | Studentship | ES/P000592/1 | 01/10/2018 | 30/03/2023 | Cherry Briggs |
| Description | This award was supposed to be an ethnographic study of the social and political impacts of climate change adaptation in Sri Lanka's dry zone. Large sums of money are currently flowing through climate finance mechanisms to adaptation projects in the dry zone, as is considered particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This project was planned before the pandemic and relied on a six months' of ethnographic fieldwork in the villages of the dry zone that were being enrolled in a large adaptation project funded by the UNDP and the Green Climate Fund, and two three-month internships (which had been planned following an initial trip to Sri Lanka in 2019) with two of the local implementing NGOs. Sri Lanka closed its borders as the pandemic unfolded and this research became impossible. Sri Lanka's borders remained closed for most of 2020 and the country was in and out of lockdowns for much of 2021. As a result, this project had to be re-envisaged so that it could be conducted from the UK. Orlove et al. (2014) have shown that attention to climate change is unevenly distributed and some areas are perceived to be more at risk than others, often because of pre-existing ideas about certain geographical regions. Climate change development projects in Sri Lanka are often framed by the island's climatic map, which divides the island into a wet and dry zone. The idea that the wet zone is contracting and the dry zone is expanding underpins much climate change discourse about the island. Furthermore, the 'dry zone' is considered to have been the cradle of the ancient Sinhalese civilisations and is symbolically important to the Sinhala Buddhist nationalists. As a result, climate change adaptation in the dry zone has at times been politicised and portrayed as return to a glorious Sinhalese past. However, if one goes to the end of the nineteenth century, the wet and dry zones were not prominent geographical concepts. Thus far, there has not been any research by anthropologists into the intellectual history of climate in Sri Lanka. Given that the wet and dry zones as geographical concepts underpin much climate change policy in Sri Lanka, this research has shifted its focus to the intellectual history behind the adaptation project that was the original, pre-covid focus of this study. At the outset, there was no academic research into how Sri Lanka came to be divided into the wet and dry zones. All that was known was that the border had been constructed at some point in the 1930s, but not why. Through archival research (in the UK), covering the period from 1800-1940, I have revealed the main stages, the technical and discursive methods and the main actors who were responsible for the delineation of the wet and dry zones, and the political and commercial motives behind it. This history starts with the collection of rainfall data in the island's first hospitals and on the coffee plantations in the nineteenth century, followed by the expansion of the Survey Department in the late 1800s, the formation of colonization policies after WW1 and culminating in the construction of the wet and dry zone boundary following a devastating malaria epidemic in the 1930s. The next stage of research will involve research in Sri Lanka into that the production of the wet and dry zones has in the present day. Through interviews with individuals and organisations involved in climate finance and climate change adaptation projects, I will establish to what extent this geographical imaginary has shaped climate policy and funding. |
| Exploitation Route | NGO workers and researchers working in climate change adaptation in Sri Lanka have expressed interest in the historical part research, as it gives context to much of their work. The second part of the research - the impact of these geographical concepts on flows of climate finance and climate adaptation policy - will be of interest to climate policymakers, organisations engaging with providers of climate finance, and the providers themselves. |
| Sectors | Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |