Has the Adaptation-Mitigation Binary Outlived its Value? Indigenous Ways
of Knowing Present an Alternative
Abstract
Actions addressing anthropogenic climate change are paramount to
survival; however, there are limitations to the current binary approach
which considers adaptation and mitigation as separate actions. Insights
from Indigenous pluralistic ontology reveals anticipatory capacity to
include components of adaptation as well as mitigation. Drawing from our
research in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, ecological calendars
build anticipatory capacity for climate change. Anticipatory capacity,
having the ability to envision possible and sustainable futures, occurs
in response to the changes in the environment. It includes elements of
foresight as these actions are simultaneously in preparation for
upcoming uncertainty. These two aspects are elements of the
adaptation-mitigation binary respectively. As illustrated by the
ecological calendars in the Bartang Valley of Tajikistan, this approach
has been carried out for many generations and is founded upon context
specificity, intellectual pluralism, and relations between the
agropastoralists and transformations in their habitat. Reconceptualizing
the adaptation-mitigation binary is not bound to the boarders of the
Pamir Mountains, rather it is a practice that is relevant globally.