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Performative Vulnerability: Climate Change Adaptation Policies and Financing in Kiribati

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  • Sophie Webber

    (Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada)

Abstract

This paper explores some of the perverse effects of climate change adaptation policies and financing in the Republic of Kiribati, a low-lying island nation in the Central Pacific. I examine how encounters between financiers and government officials might produce vulnerability to climate change. I draw throughout from field research conducted in Kiribati, an archetypical ‘vulnerable-to-climate-change’ place, and a preeminent site for experimentation in climate change adaptation. By discussing several instances where Government of Kiribati elites are required to enact vulnerability in order to secure climate change adaptation financing, I demonstrate that such encounters are performative. This research contributes to theories of performativity in showing that the matrix conditioning and compelling such performative enactments of vulnerability is socionatural, consisting of a collective of climate change impacts, adaptation-finance technocrats, and many others. Thus, I demonstrate that vulnerability is not a latent condition, but, rather, an emergent effect of an assemblage of facts, expert actors, and objects.

Suggested Citation

  • Sophie Webber, 2013. "Performative Vulnerability: Climate Change Adaptation Policies and Financing in Kiribati," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2717-2733, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:11:p:2717-2733
    DOI: 10.1068/a45311
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Terry Cannon & Detlef Müller-Mahn, 2010. "Vulnerability, resilience and development discourses in context of climate change," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 55(3), pages 621-635, December.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Stacy‐ann Robinson, 2020. "Climate change adaptation in SIDS: A systematic review of the literature pre and post the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(4), July.
    3. Elliott, Rebecca, 2021. "Insurance and the temporality of climate ethics: accounting for climate change in US flood insurance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107925, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Andrea K. Gerlak & Christina Greene, 2019. "Interrogating vulnerability in the Global Framework for Climate Services," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 99-114, November.

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