Handbook on Climate Change Vulnerability, Environments and Communities
Published on 14. October 2025
Book
Hardback
422 pages
978-1-80088-281-2 (ISBN)
Description
This thought-provoking Handbook explores the spatially and socially differentiated nature of climate change vulnerability. Expert authors discuss the ways that climate change vulnerability is materially and discursively produced as well as the agency, capacity and resilience of affected communities.
Interdisciplinary in scope, this book features both leading and emerging international academics, offering diverse perspectives. Chapters delve into the conceptual origins and theoretical debates of climate change vulnerability, as well as existing and emerging responses to vulnerability in different environmental, cultural and social contexts. With a decolonising, Indigenous-led and justice-oriented approach, this innovative Handbook critically reflects on the concept of vulnerability, examining the disparities between the experiences of those of different gendered identities and social positions. Ultimately, this book provides insights into the navigation of communal futures in response to and beyond climate change vulnerability.
Students and scholars of environmental sociology, development studies and human, environmental, social and cultural geography will greatly benefit from this Handbook's integrated perspective. It is also a vital resource for climate change researchers working in the social sciences, as well as practitioners and policymakers working on climate change vulnerability policies and programs.
Interdisciplinary in scope, this book features both leading and emerging international academics, offering diverse perspectives. Chapters delve into the conceptual origins and theoretical debates of climate change vulnerability, as well as existing and emerging responses to vulnerability in different environmental, cultural and social contexts. With a decolonising, Indigenous-led and justice-oriented approach, this innovative Handbook critically reflects on the concept of vulnerability, examining the disparities between the experiences of those of different gendered identities and social positions. Ultimately, this book provides insights into the navigation of communal futures in response to and beyond climate change vulnerability.
Students and scholars of environmental sociology, development studies and human, environmental, social and cultural geography will greatly benefit from this Handbook's integrated perspective. It is also a vital resource for climate change researchers working in the social sciences, as well as practitioners and policymakers working on climate change vulnerability policies and programs.
Reviews / Votes
'The Handbook on Climate Change Vulnerability, Environments and Communities is a timely collection of 18 chapters, many informed by field-based research from around the world, that fosters understanding of vulnerability to support both formal adaptation efforts and everyday decision-making for people impacted by exacerbating climate challenges. This important collection presents new perspectives on vulnerability from various disciplines and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing a critical engagement with both the concept of vulnerability and processes that construct and perpetuate vulnerability. It is a must-read for people prepared to be challenged while moving towards climate-resilient futures.' -- Phil McManus, The University of Sydney, Australia 'Theoretically grounded, empirically rich and geographically extensive, this critically engaged Handbook offers a trenchant analysis of climate change vulnerability. In drawing on decolonial and Indigenous perspectives, chapters astutely foreground the agency and resilience of affected communities. This stimulating, accessible collection offers new ways of thinking about human-environment relations and amplifies urgent calls for climate justice.' -- Uma Kothari, University of Manchester, UKMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cheltenham
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 169 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80088-281-2 (9781800882812)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Edited by Fiona Miller, School of Communication, Society and Culture, Macquarie University, Krishna K. Shrestha, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales and Sarah Wright, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia
Content
Contents
1 Imagining climate futures differently beyond vulnerability 1
Fiona Miller, Krishna K. Shrestha and Sarah Wright
PART I RECONCEPTUALISING VULNERABILITY
2 Agency and the capacity to adapt: addressing gendered vulnerabilities to
climate change 20
Nitya Rao
3 Affected by the weather, distracted by the climate: towards an embodied
epistemology of time 36
Yvonne Te Ruki-Rangi-o-Tangaroa Underhill-Sem
4 Climate change, migration and livelihoods: responding to or reproducing
vulnerability? 53
Ramesh Sunam, Dipak Bishwokarma and Kumar Darjee
5 Neoliberal vulnerabilization and subjectivities in Rwanda and Sao Tome
and Principe 70
Michael Mikulewicz and Karin Helwig
6 Three layers of vulnerability in climatic and environmental crises: the role
of cultural caring practices 90
Siri Veland, Camilla Risvoll, Stine Bang Svendsen and Elisabeth Stubberud
PART II KNOWING AND CONTESTING VULNERABILITY
7 Decolonising climate change adaptation: insights from Aotearoa New
Zealand 120
Meg Parsons
8 Expanding the definition of 'vulnerability' through relational, respectful
and accountable social science research in the context of climate change 149
Katy Davis, Melanie Flynn, Anuszka Mosurska, Angus Naylor, Ivan
Villaverde Canosa and James D. Ford
9 Encountering climate vulnerability through narratives and places 169
Emily Potter and Donna Houston
10 Spatial vulnerability: concept and application for decision-making in the
changing climate 187
Garima Jain, Teja Malladi and Joseph Karanja
11 Vulnerability of agricultural communities to climate-related disasters in
the coastal Vietnamese Mekong Delta 210
Vo Quoc Thanh, Vo Thi Phuong Linh and Nguyen Hieu Trung
PART III RESPONDING TO AND RESISTING VULNERABILITY
12 In search of justice: Social vulnerability, local disaster capitalism and
responding to climate change 231
Krishna K. Shrestha, Jagannath Adhikari, Eileen Baldry, Hemant
Ojha and Anthony Zwi
13 The role of Indigenous fishers' knowledge and collective action in reducing
vulnerability to climate change 256
Eranga K. Galappaththi
14 NGO responses to climate change vulnerability in China 278
Fengshi Wu, Ju-Han Zoe Wang and Natalie W.M. Wong
15 Replicable and context-specific: how co-production of knowledge can
build resilience from the bottom-up to face climate change risk 296
Roxana Borquez, Marco Billi, Anahi Urquiza, Catalina Amigo and
Rodrigo Fuster
PART IV FUTURES
16 From climate vulnerability to climate justice: resisting the inevitability of
loss, insisting on reparative relations 325
Fiona Miller
17 Voyaging beyond vulnerability: Pacific narratives of climate change
mobility 341
Christina Newport
18 From drought to dzud: nomadic wayfinding in a changing climate 362
Navchaa Tugjamba and Greg Walkerden
19 Climate change is colonial (mis)management of Country: wildfires and
Indigenous cultural burning in Australia 379
Lauren Tynan and Jessica Riley
1 Imagining climate futures differently beyond vulnerability 1
Fiona Miller, Krishna K. Shrestha and Sarah Wright
PART I RECONCEPTUALISING VULNERABILITY
2 Agency and the capacity to adapt: addressing gendered vulnerabilities to
climate change 20
Nitya Rao
3 Affected by the weather, distracted by the climate: towards an embodied
epistemology of time 36
Yvonne Te Ruki-Rangi-o-Tangaroa Underhill-Sem
4 Climate change, migration and livelihoods: responding to or reproducing
vulnerability? 53
Ramesh Sunam, Dipak Bishwokarma and Kumar Darjee
5 Neoliberal vulnerabilization and subjectivities in Rwanda and Sao Tome
and Principe 70
Michael Mikulewicz and Karin Helwig
6 Three layers of vulnerability in climatic and environmental crises: the role
of cultural caring practices 90
Siri Veland, Camilla Risvoll, Stine Bang Svendsen and Elisabeth Stubberud
PART II KNOWING AND CONTESTING VULNERABILITY
7 Decolonising climate change adaptation: insights from Aotearoa New
Zealand 120
Meg Parsons
8 Expanding the definition of 'vulnerability' through relational, respectful
and accountable social science research in the context of climate change 149
Katy Davis, Melanie Flynn, Anuszka Mosurska, Angus Naylor, Ivan
Villaverde Canosa and James D. Ford
9 Encountering climate vulnerability through narratives and places 169
Emily Potter and Donna Houston
10 Spatial vulnerability: concept and application for decision-making in the
changing climate 187
Garima Jain, Teja Malladi and Joseph Karanja
11 Vulnerability of agricultural communities to climate-related disasters in
the coastal Vietnamese Mekong Delta 210
Vo Quoc Thanh, Vo Thi Phuong Linh and Nguyen Hieu Trung
PART III RESPONDING TO AND RESISTING VULNERABILITY
12 In search of justice: Social vulnerability, local disaster capitalism and
responding to climate change 231
Krishna K. Shrestha, Jagannath Adhikari, Eileen Baldry, Hemant
Ojha and Anthony Zwi
13 The role of Indigenous fishers' knowledge and collective action in reducing
vulnerability to climate change 256
Eranga K. Galappaththi
14 NGO responses to climate change vulnerability in China 278
Fengshi Wu, Ju-Han Zoe Wang and Natalie W.M. Wong
15 Replicable and context-specific: how co-production of knowledge can
build resilience from the bottom-up to face climate change risk 296
Roxana Borquez, Marco Billi, Anahi Urquiza, Catalina Amigo and
Rodrigo Fuster
PART IV FUTURES
16 From climate vulnerability to climate justice: resisting the inevitability of
loss, insisting on reparative relations 325
Fiona Miller
17 Voyaging beyond vulnerability: Pacific narratives of climate change
mobility 341
Christina Newport
18 From drought to dzud: nomadic wayfinding in a changing climate 362
Navchaa Tugjamba and Greg Walkerden
19 Climate change is colonial (mis)management of Country: wildfires and
Indigenous cultural burning in Australia 379
Lauren Tynan and Jessica Riley