Défense de thèse de doctorat en sciences géographiques : "Climate change adaptation" - Sébastien DUJARDIN

« Climate change adaptation and development planning : a geographical perspective »

Jury

Michael CANARES (SUCS/HNU, Philippines), Pedro WALPOLE (SUCS/HNU, Philippines), Matthias GARSCHAGEN (EHS-UNU, Germany), Françoise ORBAN-FERAUGE (UNamur), Sabine HENRY, présidente (UNamur), Nicolas DENDONCKER, promoteur (UNamur)

Résumé

Climate change presents irreducible uncertainties which require integrative, strategic, and innovative ways to manage risk. In this context, development planning is often presented as a promising candidate for fundamentally reinforcing key aspects of climate change adaptation. Yet, the construction of narratives underlying the idea of ‘planning for climate change’ remain dominated by the natural sciences and focused on physical mechanisms rather than social change.

In response, this research draws attention to the social factors that define climate change adaptation as a socionatural process. Focusing on the archipelagic country of the Philippines and the island province of Bohol in particular, we explore the ways development actors from both government and civil-society organisations relate to climate change and view adaptation in their local context. Drawing upon inspiration from post-structuralist philosophies, we undertake a hybrid geographical practice that combines both quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

By forging creative connections between spatial, statistical, and interpretive discourse analysis, we show that climate change has worked its way into a set of discourses that are beyond climate knowledge as brought about by institutional processes of mainstreaming climate change adaptation into local development planning. Meanwhile, although actors from government and civil society organisations hold differentiated perspectives on adaptation and planning practices, these perspectives present commonalities suggesting that shared adaptation strategies and development pathways can emerge across organisational structures and scales.

By highlighting these multiple understandings on climate change and adaptation, we finally show that development planning can perform adaptation strategies that fully address climate change uncertainties by accounting for the multiplicity of space. When development planning recognizes both social and biophysical processes, it may become a key player for encompassing multiple perspectives and the diversity of knowledge needed to implement inclusive and transformative change.

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