Habitability in the context of environmental change is subjective and thereby shaped by an individual’s position within a socio-ecological system

Abstract

The loss of habitable land is increasingly recognised in climate risk assessments, often in an objective way that is based on natural and material parameters only. As this generalises people’s experience of environmental change and habitability, adaptation measures building on these notions runs risk to not only reproduce but also to increase existing inequalities. Further, this can influence the behaviour of funding agencies towards managed retreat and away from in-situ adaptation. Contrasting that, recent works point out how the perception of habitability differs between individuals and is thus subject to multiple claims of truth. Our work aims to add to a more nuanced conceptualisation of the habitability concept by illustrating how understanding a system’s socially constructed sphere is inevitable for capturing the habitability of places. We build our work on a qualitative field study in rural Northern Ghana, drawing on a socio-ecological notion of habitability and its inherent aspects of intersectionality. Our results show how the intersection of gender, age, socio-economic status, and household characteristics transfers to social practises that shape a socially differentiated experience of perceived habitability in places exposed to environmental change. This perception is further navigated by the connectivity of places and time as well as by very personal notions of habitability such as changes in social networks and aspects of place attachment. Contrasting obsolete and objective understandings of habitability, we conclude that the habitability of a place exposed to environmental change is subjective and relational, characterised through an actor’s position within the socially constructed dimension of a socio-ecological system. Embedding this (position) over space and through time, it is the intersection of various social categories and the social practises emerging from them that navigate that position and thereby an actor’s habitability. Understanding this and consequently contesting generalised habitability assessments is crucial to implement heterogenous policies that initiate change rather than reproducing existing inequalities through climate change adaptation. We recommend that those affected by environmental change should define their habitability.