CHAIRPERSON
Dr Fiona Willamson, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Drought has always been a periodic occurrence in the coastal and inland areas of western India. In 1998 William Meyer and colleagues produced a call for analyses of social responses to drought in the region as a heuristic analogy for the anticipated consequences of climate change. To date this this call has remained largely unanswered. Whilst the famine literature in India is substantial–particularly regarding the “Late Victorian Holocaust” famines of the late-nineteenth century–this literature is primarily concerned with understanding the causes and consequences of famines in the context of colonialism, rather gaining lessons for the future. One reason for this lack of engagement is a criticism of the idea of “analogies” as lessons for future change. This is a criticism that has come from both social-ecologists and historians; both argue that such an approach that can overly simplify similarities between past societies and those of today, although their arguments differ in substance.
This paper presents the results of a study into social responses to drought in nineteenth century colonial western India. The paper argues that the famine of the 1870s and 1890s cannot be understood without an appreciation of social processes taking place over many decades prior to the famines. The instigation of some of these processes was responses to droughts in the 1820s and 1830s, responses that would be considered successful ‘adaptations’ under the terminology of today. The paper provides reflections on the implications of this analysis for climate change adaptation and for the role of history in informing today’s challenges.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
George Adamson’s research is concerned with the role of historical analysis in information climate change and disaster risk reduction, with a particular focus on India and Southern Africa. His research encompasses climate reconstruction, the vulnerability and adaptation of past societies, and the history of climate knowledge. He is the co-author of the forthcoming monograph El Niño in World History, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in early 2017.
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