Translations of the 'adaptation to climate change' paradigm in Eastern Africa

该项目一开始就注意到，非洲的社会与环境关系目前正面临一场激烈的重塑，因为许多与气候有关的方案在概念上是在国际一级制定的，在国家一级转化为项目和方案，并在地方一级进行意识形态、社会和经济方面的谈判和分配。它把‘适应气候变化’(ACC)这一全球概念作为一种旅行理念，最初是由北方的科学家设计的，目前正“旅行”到南方。该项目基于以下假设：(1)全球ACC范式的非洲之旅是一个模棱两可和有争议的翻译过程，在这个过程中，该想法经过重新解释、修改和挪用，以便与非洲多个层面的利益相关者的经验、需求和利益相匹配。(2)翻译过程由翻译制度构成，这些制度由一组特定的行动者、交流网络、机构互动模式和知识资源构成。(3)翻译及其社会、技术和环境物化将意味着人们开发方式的根本改变，管理和保护他们的环境，从而伴随着不同社会群体与各自利益之间的冲突。将该项目与优先方案的总体目标联系起来的关键问题是双重的，一方面询问埃塞俄比亚、坦桑尼亚和卢旺达不同翻译制度的行为者如何能够在翻译行政协调会思想的过程中发挥其适应和创造性的能力，另一方面这些能力的动员和转变如何塑造这些国家的环境治理，从而重新安排国家-社会-环境关系的秩序。该项目的具体目标是，通过确定翻译人员来了解翻译过程，分析他们的翻译实践及其在其中传播和翻译行政协调会思想的多标量网络，将行政协调会的不同翻译理解为在不同翻译制度下当地创造力和适应的表达，通过确定环境监测、行动小组和土地利用变化等新出现和/或重新塑造的结构来跟踪行政协调会翻译对环境治理从而对国家-社会关系的影响，理解不同含义的适应和的相互作用，通过比较经验实地调查的跨学科和理论知情方法为优先方案的结构和概念目标做出贡献

The project starts from the observation that society-environment relations in Africa are currently facing an intense re-shaping through a multitude of climate related programmes, conceptually developed at an international level, translated into projects and programmes at the national level and negotiated and appropriated ideologically, socially and economically at the local level. It takes the global concept of ‘Adaptation to Climate Change’ (ACC) as a travelling idea that was initially designed by scientists in the North and is presently “travelling” to the South. The project is based on the following hypotheses:(1) The ‘travelling’ of the global ACC paradigm to Africa is an ambiguous and contested translation process in which the idea undergoes reinterpretation, modification and appropriation so that it matches experiences, needs and interests of stakeholders at multiple levels in Africa.(2) Translation processes are structured by translation regimes that are constituted by a specific set of actors, networks of communication, institutional patterns of interaction, and knowledge resources.(3) Translations and their social, technological and environmental materialisations will imply fundamental changes in the way people exploit, manage and conserve their environment and thus be accompanied by conflicts between different social groups with their respective interests.The key question that links the project to the overall objective of the priority programme is twofold and asks on the one hand how actors in different translation regimes in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda are able to unfold their capacities of adaptation and creativity in the process of translation of the ACC idea and on the other hand how the mobilisation and transformation of these capacities shape environmental governance and thus a re-ordering of state-society-environment relations in these countries.The specific objectives of the project are to understand the processes of translation by identifying the translators, analysing their translation practices and their multi-scalar networks in and through which the idea of ACC travels and is translated, to understand diverse ACC translations as an expression of local creativity and adaptation in different translation regimes, to trace impacts of ACC translations on environmental governance and thus on statesociety relations by identifying emerging and/or re-shaped structures of e.g. environmental surveillance, action groups and land use changes, to understand the interactions of different significations of ‘adaptation’ and to contribute to the structural and conceptual aim of the priority programme through an interdisciplinary and theoretical informed approach of comparative empirical fieldwork