Came an east wind: An anthropology of climate, landscape, and marginality in Cornwall, England

What is climate? A typical response to this question follows a scientific definition of climate, which is average weather of a particular region over a long period of time. This dissertation is not, however, about climate as defined by science. Instead, this dissertation takes a critical look at the implicit cultural, social, and scientific assumptions embedded in the concept of climate and the implications these assumptions have for obscuring political economic relationships in society. The focal point of this study is the juncture between social constructions of climate, weather, and tourism in Cornwall, England. Through an ethnographic case study of the August 2004 flood in the picturesque seaside village of Boscastle in North Cornwall, and an historical analysis of the Great Western Railway's Cornish Riviera tourism campaign at the turn of the twentieth century, this research illustrates how the concept of climate connects to a wider variety of political processes that reinforce social inequities in Cornwall. While this ethnography sheds light on related fields of enquiry, most significantly the importance of using historical knowledge to inform decisions about development and management of local environments, it also challenges the inherent political and cultural assumptions that underlie mitigation, adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience within the climate change literature. Whereas the theoretical relevance of adaptation to environmental uncertainly has played an important role in anthropology for decades, until now anthropologists have failed to critically examine the emerging discourse over mitigation and adaptation, the two principal policy approaches to global climate change. By drawing upon critiques of ecological management and adaptive co-management, this dissertation argues that taking adaptation for granted as an appropriate bottom-up strategy for coping with climate change ignores the political economic contexts in which this environmental strategy developed. The purpose of this dissertation is to transcend the mitigation/adaptation science policy debate by unmasking the social and political realities in which these approaches are embedded, and provide a much needed critique of the emerging adaptation/resilience literature.