ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the challenges to adaptation posed by political instability, through a brief qualitative account of climate change programmes in Nepal. Fragile political contexts are assumed to be at greater risk from climate change in part because of changes in resources, and in part because of the lack of robust institutions (Raleigh and Urdal 2007). Responses put forward have included securitization (militarization and border controls), and the promotion of development in at-risk areas to reduce the threat of violence (Dalby 2009). However, this chapter shows how current ‘development-as-usual’ approaches to the promotion of adaptation are inadequate in conflict settings. Using a feminist political ecology lens to illuminate inequality and the ‘socioecological’ contexts through which climate change and contentious politics collide, I demonstrate how adaptation programmes need to attend to the links between society–nature and power. The main argument is that adaptation for whom is more important than the present emphasis on how to adapt. Using material from national and local levels, this chapter shows how adaptation processes cannot be conceived separately from politics: these processes need to be recognized as developing and unfolding within already-politicized relationships and networks. Such networks range from contentious local politics to global aid relations, requiring adaptation programmes to take a broader look at how, where and with what consequences they seek to assist people in developing countries to adapt.
