Pluto Press Climate, Capitalism and Communities: An Anthropology of Environmental Overheating

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. Review ""'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' About the Author Astrid B. Stensrud is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, where she is part of the Overheating research project. She has published articles on climate change, neoliberalism and water politics in the journals, Ethos, History and Anthropology, Latin American Perspectives and Latin American Research Review, as well as chapters in edited volumes, Waterworlds: Anthropology in Fluid Environments (2016) and Identity Destabilised (2016). Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. He is the author of numerous classics of anthropology, including Small Places, Large Issues - 4th Edition (Pluto, 2015) and What is Anthropology? - 2nd Edition (Pluto, 2017).