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An Anthropological Perspective on the Climate Change and Violence Relationship

  • Climate Change and Conflicts (E Gilmore, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review explores the complex climate change-violence relationship through an anthropological lens, focusing on the interacting social and environmental conditions that constrain individual choices for violence. Evidence and methods used by anthropologists to identify violent events, as well as anthropological theories regarding why individuals choose violence, are discussed. A general social-environmental model is presented and explored through four case studies, two archaeological and two ethnographic.

Recent Findings

Recent research with historic and contemporary case studies suggests that resource uncertainty interacts with a complex array of pre-existing social and environmental conditions, including environmental degradation, poor governance, and social inequality, to promote violent responses both before and following climatic changes. Individuals may choose to avoid violence where supporting, cooperative mechanisms exist.

Summary

Given that individuals make choices to respond violently or not based on their perceptions of these complex, interacting social and environmental conditions, violence in response to global climate change is not inevitable.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks Drs. Elisabeth Gilmore and Brian Sodden for their invitation to contribute to this special edition of Current Climate Change Reports.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, 0110 Woods Hall, 4302 Chapel Lane, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    L. Jen Shaffer

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Correspondence to L. Jen Shaffer.

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Shaffer, L.J. An Anthropological Perspective on the Climate Change and Violence Relationship. Curr Clim Change Rep 3, 222–232 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-017-0076-8

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