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Accepted Paper:

Carbon cultures, CDM projects & travelling packages  
Graeme MacRae (Massey University)

Paper short abstract:

This paper reports on a waste management project in Bali, Indonesia that has re-invented itself as a "climate change" project as a strategy to attract funding. My argument draws on Anna Tsing´s notion of "traveling packages" of knowledge, that move, taking on new meanings, and end up taking unintended forms in unlikely places.

Paper long abstract:

‘Climate Change’, until recently the preserve of scientists and well-informed environmentalists, has recently and suddenly taken on new public meanings, rhetorical power, economic value and political currency. On one hand the burgeoning climate change economy has spawned a raft of new consultancies, enterprises, exchange systems and entrepreneurial opportunities. On the other, ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’ and indeed ‘carbon’ itself have become powerful cultural symbols carrying a complex range of meanings.

This paper reports on research which includes a history of the culture and political-economy of carbon, a case-study of a waste management project in Indonesia that has re-invented itself as a ‘climate change’ project as a strategy to attract funding, and a preliminary attempt to bring them into theoretical focus by drawing on Anna Tsing’s notion of ‘traveling packages’ of knowledge, that move from the places of origin, taking on new meanings as they travel, and often end up taking on unintended forms in unlikely places.

Panel P09
The anthropology of climate change: a challenge for humanity and the discipline in the 21st century
  Session 1