Limited room For manoeuvre - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 260

developed over time and passed on through generations. The ability to predict
and interpret natural phenomena, including weather conditions, has been vital
for survival and wellbeing and has also been instrumental in the development of
local cultural practices, social structures, trust and authority.
The societal production of knowledge about nature's cycles has led to certain
cultural practices. These practices, in turn, have resulted in the creation of cultural
capital (see Bourdieu 1986), which includes the forms of knowledge described
above, related skills and competences (including social competence), and the
social generation of this knowledge - the practices and rituals through which it
is reproduced. Structures are developed around these practices and rituals, with
varying levels of formalization, including leadership and authority structures,
education (or knowledge transmission) strategies and religious practices.
These cultural institutions serve to maintain, develop and dispute information,
allowing for continuity as well as flexibility to incorporate new information and
adapt to the changing circumstances that are heavily affecting natural resource
management, community health and coping abilities.
Advocating for an understanding of the concept of room for manoeuvre is a call
for recognition of the need - and possibility - for creating the right kinds of
spaces. It is also a call for an approach that can facilitate appropriate, innovative
and creative adaptation, with principles of equity and social justice at its core
(Thomas and Twyman 2005). Although the factors described interweave in
varied ways, it is possible to identify some general patterns in how climate
change and variability are impacting indigenous peoples around the globe. The
sub-sections below describe the social and cultural impacts of climate change;
the role of knowledge in adaptation to climate change; and how all these interact
with other pressures experienced by indigenous peoples. We highlight some
specific ways in which the cultural capital of indigenous peoples is connected to
their resources, and how changes in these constrain the room for manoeuvre.
Social and cultural impacts of climate change
In Latin America, the elders and traditional leaders of the communities visited
expressed virtually unanimous concern that the direct effects of climate change
are not the only consequences - that social, political and institutional upheavals
are also devastating. Traditionally seen as local experts, these formal or informal
leaders lose credibility when climatic conditions become impossible to predict.
Unprecedented changes in the timing of frost, heavy rain and drought are
disrupting the agricultural cycle in ways that no one would ever have imagined.
When such events recur, it undermines ritual practices, joint social memory
and the ability of elders to maintain social order. Such social upheaval, in turn,
leads to serious consequences for local governance of natural resources. When
traditional authorities cannot guarantee abundance and prosperity, their status
falls. People look elsewhere for solutions to their problems - by seeking other
bodies of knowledge, and by migrating.