Environmental Transformations and Cultural Responses

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Engaging with Environmental Transformation in Oceania

   • Arno Pascht, Eveline Dürr

   Pages 1-17

3. Climate Change, Christian Religion and Songs: Revisiting the Noah Story in the Central Pacific

   • Wolfgang Kempf

   Pages 19-48

4. Climate Change and Worries over Land: Articulations in the Atoll State of Kiribati

   • Elfriede Hermann

   Pages 49-73

5. Experiencing Environmental Dynamics in Chuuk, Micronesia

   • Rebecca Hofmann

   Pages 75-101

6. Young ni-Vanuatu Encounter Climate Change: Reception of Knowledge and New Discourses

   • Desirée Hetzel, Arno Pascht

   Pages 103-124

7. Whose Beach, Which Nature? Coproducing Coastal Naturecultures and Erosion Control in Aotearoa New Zealand

   • Friederike Gesing

   Pages 125-156

8. The “White Magic” of Modernity: Retracing Indigenous Environmental Knowledge in Settler-Colonialist Australia

   • Carsten Wergin

   Pages 157-185

9. Naturally Occurring Asbestos: The Perception of Rocks in the Mountains of New Caledonia

   • Elisabeth Worliczek

   Pages 187-214

10. Epilogue: Re-building Ships at Sea: Ontological Innovation in Action

    • Amiria Salmond

    Pages 215-226

11. Back Matter

    Pages 227-233

    PDF

This book explores the various ways in which different communities and peoples in Oceania respond to and engage with recent environmental challenges and concurrent socio-political reconfigurations. Based on empirical research, the book discusses topics such as belonging, emotional attachment to land, and new forms of environmental knowledge. The theoretical framework of the book is inspired by current debates among diverse conceptualisations of the environment and thus, of various ways of knowing, making sense of, and interacting with worlds. With this focus in mind, the book provides new insights into recent socio-cultural and environmental dynamics in the Pacific. 

• Climate change
• Global warming
• Kiribati Pacific Islanders
• Chuuk
• Micronesia
• Vanuatu
• API
• Pacific Islanders

• Academic/Ed, Munich, Germany

  Eveline Dürr

• Munich, Germany

  Arno Pascht

Eveline Dürr is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany. She has worked in New Zealand, Mexico, and the US. Her research addresses environmental issues, urban inequality, and mobilities.


Arno Pascht is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany. He has worked in the Cook Islands on land tenure and chiefs today, and is currently conducting a project investigating the localizing of global climate change policies in Vanuatu.
 

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