A plural climate studies framework for the Himalayas

Abstract

The production of climate change knowledge is mired in issues of equity and justice. Decision-making and governance are often deeply biased towards dominant scientific/market-driven frameworks, excluding plural place-based perspectives. The characterization of the Himalayas as ‘exceptionally precarious’ to climate change builds on the enduring legacy of the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation. This ignores how climatic transformations, both material and discursive, remain embedded within historic relationships of power. Recent critical scholarship has challenged such dominant, elite techno-managerial narratives. Our paper engages with such critiques to democratize Climate knowledge production pertaining to the Himalayas. Through a synthesis of scholarship in post/anti/de-colonial studies, political ecology and environmental justice we reveal the power-knowledge hierarchies undergirding climate change in the Himalayas, and draw lessons from the agency of marginalized communities. We argue for a socially just and scientifically plural framework that highlight issues of geo-political insecurity, narratives of the Anthropocene and the place-based experiences of socio-ecological change.