Rethinking climate change adaptation and place through a situated pathways framework: A case study from the Big Hole Valley, USA

Abstract

This paper critically examines the temporal and spatial dynamics of adaptation in climate change science and ores how dynamic notions of ‘place’ elucidate novel ways of understanding community vulnerability and adaptation. Using data gathered from a narrative scenario-building process carried out among communities of the Big Hole Valley in Montana, the paper describes the role of ‘place-making’ and the ‘politics of place’ in shaping divergent future climate adaptation pathways. Drawing on a situated adaptation pathways framework and employing an iterative scenario building process, this article demonstrates how ‘place’ contextualizes future imagined trajectories of social and ecological change so that key impacts and decisions articulate as elements of place-making and place politics. By examining these key ‘moments’ of future change, participants illuminate the complex linkages between place and governance that are integral to understanding community adaptation and planning for an uncertain future.