Sensing weather: scientific and experiential modes of knowledge production for small-scale farming in western Kenya
<p>Agriculture depends in large part on relations with weather phenomena, such as rain and temperature. Anticipatory knowledge about the atmosphere therefore is vital in agricultural livelihoods. Based on an ethnographic case study of weather forecasting for small-scale farming in western Keny...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
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Copernicus Publications
2023-02-01
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| Series: | Geographica Helvetica |
| Online Access: | https://gh.copernicus.org/articles/78/87/2023/gh-78-87-2023.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Agriculture depends in large part on relations with weather
phenomena, such as rain and temperature. Anticipatory knowledge about the
atmosphere therefore is vital in agricultural livelihoods. Based on an
ethnographic case study of weather forecasting for small-scale farming in
western Kenya, in this paper I discuss different ways in which knowledge
about the future weather is produced. While development organizations
promote expert forecasts that draw on meteorological sensing technologies as
a solution to dealing with climate change, I show how knowing the weather is
an entangled affair in a sensory assemblage that simultaneously draws on
scientific instruments and on other entities such as animals, plants,
clouds and embodied sensoria associated with experiential knowledge.
Building on concepts related to science and technology studies that address
the relations between humans and nonhumans, I suggest to treat scientific
and experiential devices symmetrically by looking at their more-than-human
sensoria, proxies and imaginations to understand how farmers attune to the
weather. In practice, then, navigating the uncertainties of the weather is
not enabled by scientific meteorology alone, but by combining different
sensory devices and practices of interpretation that together mediate the
weather as something to be known and acted upon.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 0016-7312 2194-8798 |