Dwelling in the Age of Climate Change: The Ethics of Adaptation

Currently, adaptation policy for climate change prioritises economic and technological dimensions of governance and action. Now, Elaine Kelly brings continental theory into the conversation to explore the ethical dilemmas stemming from emerging global political crises of migration, displacement and communal relocation related to climate change. She argues that, in the era of anthropocentric climate change, an ‘ethos of dwelling’ must underpin adaptation practices.

• The first focused engagement to apply deconstruction and Levinasian ethics to the pressing and complex dilemmas of climate change and human mobility
• Detailed case studies of Bangladesh, the Torres Strait Islands and Queensland in Australia and New Orleans in the US bring into sharp focus the ethics and politics of adapting to climate change and how this universal phenomenon is experienced unevenly by the poor and marginalised
• Interdisciplinary and multi-methodological approach, relevant to disciplines from cultural studies to philosophy and from ecohumanities to international relations