Suchergebnisse

AbstractAs humanity enters a new era of climate‐induced unpredictability, research into the role of religion in shaping perceptions of, and responses to disaster will become increasingly important. This is particularly true of South Asia, which contains dense populations certain to be adversely affected by climate change. This contribution explores the way religion shapes and mediates responses to disaster in Pakistan. Where previous work in this field has focused on extremists and militants, mine considers currents of lived Islam that take explicit stances on questions of natural resource development. Drawing upon extensive primary data, I identify two distinct disaster cosmologies permeating state and society. First, I consider the official Islam of experts and policymakers, whose approach to development is derived from, but arguably surpasses the modernism of British and American colonial and Cold War paradigms in its dogmatic, faith‐based belief in the imperative of mastering and exploiting nature. The second is an altogether contrasting formation embedded in a political protest movement representing a marginalized constituency, the Siraiki speaking population of Southern Punjab, which mobilized flood affectees in the aftermath of the 2010 floods around issues of social and environmental justice.

Today, we have a better understanding than ever of the social phenomena associated with anthropogenic climate change, especially climate-related human mobility. Research has confirmed that climate change mostly engenders South-South movements, internal displacement within the so-called Global South and immobility, thus essentially debunking the ongoing securitisation of so-called climate migration to the Global North. Studies have also underlined that the effects of climate change play out differently for already disenfranchised or marginalised groups and elites, and that this discrimination is rarely sufficiently addressed in negotiation processes linked to the issue of climate change.