1/20/22 · Research

"It scares me that climate change is being reduced to the idea of pure science"

Manuel Tironi

Manuel Tironi

Manuel Tironi , associate professor at the Institute of Sociology and the Institute for Sustainable Development, at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

 

Manuel Tironi is an associate professor at the Institute of Sociology and the Institute for Sustainable Development, both at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is also the lead researcher at the Research Centre for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN). He will be one of the speakers at the upcoming "Planet Person. The Limits of the Climate Crisis" series organized by Sala Beckett and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and curated by the researcher Israel Rodríguez-Giralt (CareNet, IN3). In this interview, Tironi shares his thoughts on climate change and the challenges it poses. Drawing on his experience working in Chile, he also proposes some ideas on the collaborative bridges that could be built between the North and South. He warns of some of the dangers that the ecological transition in Europe poses for the South, made evident by the lithium rush. He is currently working with Lickanantai (Atacameño) groups in Chile's Salar de Atacama salt flat on ecological reparation and epistemic autonomy issues surrounding mining extractivism. He is a global advisor to the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and, as of this year, is a member of Cultural Anthropology's editorial team.

 

Manuel Tironi is an associate professor at the Institute of Sociology and the Institute for Sustainable Development, both at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is also the lead researcher at the Research Centre for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN). He will be one of the speakers at the upcoming "Planet Person. The Limits of the Climate Crisis" series organized by Sala Beckett and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and curated by the researcher Israel Rodríguez-Giralt (CareNet, IN3). In this interview, Tironi shares his thoughts on climate change and the challenges it poses. Drawing on his experience working in Chile, he also proposes some ideas on the collaborative bridges that could be built between the North and South. He warns of some of the dangers that the ecological transition in Europe poses for the South, made evident by the lithium rush. He is currently working with Lickanantai (Atacameño) groups in Chile's Salar de Atacama salt flat on ecological reparation and epistemic autonomy issues surrounding mining extractivism. He is a global advisor to the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and, as of this year, is a member of Cultural Anthropology's editorial team.

The world is experiencing unprecedented climate change. How do you think concepts such as "the Anthropocene", "climate emergency" and "extinction" affect how we think about this problem and its possible solutions?

These concepts are often misleading, which is why they should be treated with caution. They both give and take away. On the one hand, they have the power to summon and mobilize. On the other, they are so bombastic that they end up obscuring processes and stifling alternatives. For example, it's important and necessary for the Anthropocene to identify the human cause of the disaster, but which humans are to blame exactly? Where? When? How?

In your opinion, what limits does the idea of climate change have when it comes to rethinking the challenges posed by this phenomenon?

The other day I heard a prominent environmental figure say that he didn't care whether or not people understood what climate change is and how it affects them, that changes had to be made immediately anyway. Such universalizing, totalizing imperatives scare me. It scares me that climate change is being reduced to the idea of pure, unequivocal science that exists beyond social life. To paraphrase Isabelle Stengers, if we want climate change to prompt future action, we need to ground it, make it a public matter that's open to many-sided discussions.

What other concepts and notions should be taken into account to tackle the problem?

Rather than looking for other concepts – there are already so many! – I think we need to look for new sensibilities to approach the issues and the way they're conceived. For example, in my opinion, the subject of extinction needs quite a bit more elaboration. Not all extinctions are the same; there are deaths that kill by destroying and others that kill by giving birth, just as there are deaths that end and others that never do and whose prolongation becomes part of extractivist processes. I believe that the current times require us to have a more complex relationship with finitude, exhaustion and death.

In your opinion, what role should indigenous ancestral knowledge, citizen engagement and connection to the territory play in the fight against climate change and disaster risk reduction?

A leading role, no doubt. But the issue is more complex than that. Indigenous and local knowledge is often celebrated as a complement to "scientific" knowledge. However, this celebration has a strong tendency to orientalize, and indigenous knowledge systems are not viewed as having value in their own right. Nor is territorial or epistemological autonomy given back to them. Indigenous communities are still concerned with recovering their land and exercising political and, from there, scientific self-determination. There is little point in encouraging their "participation" in climate adaptation or risk management projects if their methodologies and hypotheses are not considered, let alone if their territories continue to be occupied by corporations and the state.

What issues do your studies in Chile focus on?

Right now, I'm keenly interested in ecological reparation, particularly in indigenous contexts. Repairing damaged ecologies is critical to the prospect of living and dying well, but there are still very rigid ideas of what reparation, ecology, death and time are. I'm also interested in promoting collaboration between diverse knowledge systems. For example, together with Lickanantai groups in the Salar de Atacama, we're connecting Atacameño and Western methodologies to make hydrogeological diagnoses that are helping to heal the territory.

Which challenges facing Chile due to climate change are linked to general global issues? For example, what are the implications for Chile's salt flats of the demand for lithium from European societies engaged in the ecological transition?

In addition to aggravating socio-ecological damage in the Salar de Atacama basin, the electromobility boom has also given more weight to the type of developmentalist discourse – now with green overtones – that justifies the sacrifice of bodies and territories, usually of the poor, peasants and indigenous people, in the name of sustainability. The lithium craze has also prompted a return to extremely aggressive nationalist discourses – ideas of the state, what is ours and what is Chilean abound in the lithium debate – that forget about the territory and the communities that have inhabited it for 12,000 years.

What impact do processes such as the ecological transition in Europe have on distant realities and what bridges can be built for the benefit of all?

The colonial rationale of green capitalism is evident in the case of lithium: electric vehicles and sustainability for the rich in Europe, dispossession and ecological damage for the poor in Latin America. So the first thing is for Europe to acknowledge the histories of injustice that mark sustainability as a geopolitical project. I believe that from there, North-South collaborations can be forged, especially at sub-national scales. I have more hope in alliances between territories, communities or municipalities pushing from below than in the UN model of global governance.

What can be done in the social sciences to rethink current challenges such as climate change?

It's important for the social sciences to take a critical, precautionary approach when facing agendas that claim to be universal and urgent without further reflection on who, where, when and how. I also believe that the situation demands that the social sciences recover their more prospective thrust and help not only in criticizing, but also in bringing about real transformations at various scales.

Is there still work to be done in terms of interdisciplinary collaboration and the contribution of other knowledge such as ancestral knowledge? What opportunities does this offer for the future?

Interdisciplinarity is a given in the academic and political circles I work in, and thank goodness. But the question is still how to go about it, because there are various models. The same goes for integrating indigenous expertise. For me, the fundamental thing is not to essentialize them. I see a lot of fetishization, as if indigenous knowledge is valid as long as it's exotic. I believe that true collaboration begins when indigeneity is understood as a blueprint for existential autonomy that is not based on a specific type of knowledge, but on a set of principles and systems that shape life projects, which includes determining which knowledge – ancestral or Western, ceremonial or technological – is the most relevant for deciding their future.

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