Cases of climate maladaptation are increasingly documented. Its identification and redressal has become a priority for researchers and policymakers concerned with climate vulnerability reduction. The ability to address climate maladaptation hinges on being open to its diverse causes, manifestations, and impacts. This study argues that climate maladaptation analyses are dominated by an “interactional ontology”—the understanding that it can be explained as an observable outcome from how separate social, economic, and political systems interact in moments of time. Consequently, efforts to curb climate maladaptation often target the institutional contexts (e.g., rules, regulations) understood as enabling adaptation practices to aggravate climate risks. But this only captures a partial aspect of climate maladaptation, neglecting underlying causes and processes. We argue a “relational ontology” can complement the “why and how” of maladaptation. A relational ontology understands climate maladaptation as an evolving process constituted through dynamic material and discursive relations, versus an observable outcome from separately interacting systems. By analyzing how adaptation initiatives are related to, framed, and politicized, are rendered visible. To demonstrate this, we study the Government of Maharashtra’s (India) , a program aimed at increasing water conservation to “free” 20,000 villages from drought impacts. From our theorization and empirical case, we discuss how a relational ontology contributes to debates in the climate maladaptation literature and invites approaches for mitigating this phenomenon.

中文翻译：

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重新概念化气候适应不良：用相关的社会自然来补充社会生态相互作用


气候适应不良的案例越来越多地被记录下来。其识别和纠正已成为关注减少气候脆弱性的研究人员和政策制定者的首要任务。解决气候适应不良的能力取决于对其不同原因、表现和影响持开放态度。这项研究认为，气候适应不良分析以“相互作用本体论”为主导，即可以将其解释为不同社会、经济和政治系统在某个时刻如何相互作用的可观察结果。因此，遏制气候适应不良的努力通常针对被理解为使适应实践加剧气候风险的制度环境（例如规则、法规）。但这只抓住了气候适应不良的一部分，忽略了根本原因和过程。我们认为“关系本体论”可以补充适应不良的“原因和方式”。关系本体论将气候适应不良理解为通过动态物质和话语关系构成的演变过程，而不是单独相互作用的系统的可观察结果。通过分析适应举措如何相关、框架和政治化，如何变得可见。为了证明这一点，我们研究了马哈拉施特拉邦政府（印度）的一项计划，旨在加强节水以使 20,000 个村庄“摆脱”干旱影响。从我们的理论和实证案例中，我们讨论了关系本体论如何促进气候适应不良文献中的争论，并提出缓解这种现象的方法。