Mountains of Blame: Climate and Culpability in the Philippine Uplands (Culture, Place, and Nature)

Explores the unsettling phenomenon of indigenous self-blame for climate changeSwidden agriculture has long been considered the primary cause of deforestation throughout Southeast Asia, and the Philippine government has used this belief to exclude the indigenous people of Palawan Island from their ancestral lands and to force them to abandon traditional modes of land use. After adopting ostensibly modern and ecologically sustainable livelihoods, the Pala'wan people have experienced drought and uncertain weather patterns, which they have blamed on their own failure to observe traditional social norms that are believed to regulate climate—norms that, like swidden agriculture, have been outlawed by the state.In this ethnographic case study, Will Smith asks how those who have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation have come to position themselves as culpable for the devastating impacts of climate change, examining their statements about changing weather, processes of dispossession, and experiences of climate-driven hunger. By engaging both forest policy and local realities, he suggests that reckoning with these complexities requires reevaluating and questioning key wisdoms in global climate-change policy: What is indigenous knowledge, and who should it serve? Who is to blame for the vulnerability of the rural poor? What, and who, belongs in tropical forests? "This thoughtful ethnography provides a detailed account of a forest community on the Philippine island of Palawan grappling with the material and conceptual implications of a changing climate, including residents' sense of self-blame for environmental events. Swidden agriculture has long been considered the primary cause of deforestation throughout Southeast Asia. Following this logic, government authorities excluded the Indigenous people of Palawan from their ancestral lands after World War II and forced them to abandon traditional modes of land use. After adopting ostensibly modern and ecologically sustainable livelihoods, they have experienced drought and uncertain weather patterns, which they have blamed on their own failure to observe traditional social norms that are believed to regulate climate. Such norms, including local customary modes of punishment for violators of incest taboos and other transgressions, have, like swidden agriculture, been outlawed by the Philippine state. In Mountains of Blame, Will Smith uses historical records and over twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork to examine statements about changing weather, processes of dispossession, and experiences of climate-driven hunger that are related to Pala'wan narratives of self-blame, a personal response to climate change that is not uncommon among Indigenous peoples worldwide. He suggests that reckoning with these complexities requires questioning key assumptions in the global environmental policy narrative"-- Provided by publisher

Swidden agriculture has long been considered the primary cause of deforestation throughout Southeast Asia, and the Philippine government has used this belief to exclude the indigenous people of Palawan Island from their ancestral lands and to force them to abandon traditional modes of land use. After adopting ostensibly modern and ecologically sustainable livelihoods, the Pala’wan people have experienced drought and uncertain weather patterns, which they have blamed on their own failure to observe traditional social norms that are believed to regulate climate—norms that, like swidden agriculture, have been outlawed by the state.

In this ethnographic case study, Will Smith asks how those who have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation have come to position themselves as culpable for the devastating impacts of climate change, examining their statements about changing weather, processes of dispossession, and experiences of climate-driven hunger. By engaging both forest policy and local realities, he suggests that reckoning with these complexities requires reevaluating and questioning key wisdoms in global climate-change policy: What is indigenous knowledge, and who should it serve? Who is to blame for the vulnerability of the rural poor? What, and who, belongs in tropical forests?

Swidden agriculture has long been considered the primary cause of deforestation throughout Southeast Asia, and the Philippine government has used this belief to exclude the indigenous people of Palawan Island from their ancestral lands and to force them to abandon traditional modes of land use. After adopting ostensibly modern and ecologically sustainable livelihoods, the Pala'wan people have experienced drought and uncertain weather patterns, which they have blamed on their own failure to observe traditional social norms that are believed to regulate climate--norms that, like swidden agriculture, have been outlawed by the state. In this ethnographic case study, Will Smith asks how those who have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation have come to position themselves as culpable for the devastating impacts of climate change, examining their statements about changing weather, processes of dispossession, and experiences of climate-driven hunger. By engaging both forest policy and local realities, he suggests that reckoning with these complexities requires reevaluating and questioning key wisdoms in global climate-change policy: What is indigenous knowledge, and who should it serve? Who is to blame for the vulnerability of the rural poor? What, and who, belongs in tropical forests?