Environmental Change and Agency: Interactions Between Persons, Material Entities and Energies in the Pacific State of Tonga

气候变化和机动车辆增长带来的环境变化在大洋洲的许多岛国造成了问题。这一人类学研究项目审查了汤加的某些力量在多大程度上被认为有能力带来环境变化。在其他太平洋国家中，汤加王国是一个特例，因为在君主制和民主化力量之间的紧张领域中，已经形成了应对环境变化的观念和方法。这项研究项目探索了当地人带来环境变化的能力归因于人、物质实体和能量的问题。这个中心问题基于这样一个论点，即社会行为者分配给人类和非人类资源的代理程度取决于对环境的了解、政治背景、社会地位、宗教信仰、经济利益以及对环境变化影响的感知。在民族志田野调查的基础上，我们考察了环境变化的各种原因与社会、经济、宗教，特别是政治参数之间相互作用的观点。

Environmental changes due to the effects of climate change and the growth of motor vehicles have caused problems in many of Oceania’s island states. This anthropological research project examines the extent to which certain forces in Tonga are ascribed the ability to bring about changes in the environment. Amongst other Pacific countries, the Kingdom of Tonga presents a special case because perceptions and ways of dealing with environmental transformations have developed within a field of tension between the monarchy and democratizing forces. This research project explores the question of which capacities to bring about environmental changes local people attribute to persons, material entities, and energies. This central question is based on the thesis that the degree of agency that social actors assign to human and non-human sources depends on knowledge of the environment, the political context, social positionings, religious beliefs, economic interests, and the perceptibility of the effects of environmental change. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we examine perspectives on the interaction of various causes of environmental change in connection with social, economic, religious, and especially political parameters.