Call for Submissions: Historicizing Adaptation

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Historicizing Adaptation

A NiCHE Series

Proposal deadline: 29 November 2024
Prospective publication: Late winter/spring 2025 onward
Series editor: Shannon Stunden Bower

The continued acceleration of climate change has made clear that, globally, coming decades will inevitably involve efforts at adapting to climate change’s effects. These efforts at adaptation will play out alongside continued attempts at mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change and addressing the societal structures that facilitate continued emissions, as well as confronting those structures that promote the inequitable distribution of the benefits of burning fossil fuels and the harms of climate change.

While some aspects of the contemporary climate crisis are new, the imperative of adaptation is not. The Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE) is seeking submissions of blog posts that aim to historicize processes of adaptation. Titled “Historicizing Adaptation,” this series of posts seeks to offer historical perspectives on the challenges, complexities, and opportunities of adapting to radical and unpredictable change. Submissions may address historical adaptation to shifts in climate, but they may also address adaptation in response to other catalysts, whether environmental or otherwise.

Prospective authors are encouraged to consider what adaptation has meant in the past, what perspectives or strategies have facilitated or hindered adaptation, the ways adaptation has varied over time and space and among social groups, and how nonhuman actors have engaged in or been involved in adaptation. Submissions may also address the particular challenges and/or opportunities of studying adaptation in historical perspective. Authors are particularly invited to consider how adaptation has functioned alongside resistance, potentially serving as a technique of refusal, rebellion, or resurgence. Fundamental to this series is the understanding that adaptation is not capitulation.

Particularly welcome are submissions from scholars studying the adaptation strategies of groups or individuals who have confronted oppressive structures of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, or who were subject to disadvantages derived from prevailing economic systems. Potential contributors are encouraged to attend to the varied and uneven outcomes of historical efforts at adaptation.

We invite blog posts in the range of 800 to 1200 words. Posts should be accompanied by at least one image that is free of copyright restrictions. Authors are welcome to submit proposals related to any time-period or area of the globe, provided there is a clear connection to the notion of adaptation. Authors may also address historical adaptation in theoretical, conceptual, or methodological perspectives. This series will be edited by Shannon Stunden Bower (University of Alberta), in consultation with the NiCHE blog editors-in-chief.

The deadline for expressions of interest is 29 November 2024 and the deadline for submission of articles is 31 January 2025. If you are interested in contributing to this series, please complete this google form. Prospective authors can anticipate a response by 20 December 2024. Please send any questions to Shannon Stunden Bower at stundenbower@ualberta.ca.

NiCHE offers $100 CAD honoraria to contributors without adequate or consistent access to institutional support. Learn more about our honoraria policy here.

Feature Image: Image is part of the University of Lethbridge Library Digitized Collections, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge Research Center Photo Collection, P24-21.1. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
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Shannon Stunden Bower

Shannon Stunden Bower is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the Canadian Prairies, and addresses questions related to water management (with particular concern for the extremes of flood or drought) and government institutions (whether at national, provincial, or local scales).

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