Mahony Martin
Science, Society & Sustainability (3S) Research Group, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Soc Stud Sci. 2014 Feb;44(1):109-133. doi: 10.1177/0306312713501407.
Acts of scientific calculation have long been considered central to the formation of the modern nation state, yet the transnational spaces of knowledge generation and political action associated with climate change seem to challenge territorial modes of political order. This article explores the changing geographies of climate prediction through a study of the ways in which climate change is rendered knowable at the national scale in India. The recent controversy surrounding an erroneous prediction of melting Himalayan glaciers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides a window onto the complex and, at times, antagonistic relationship between the Panel and Indian political and scientific communities. The Indian reaction to the error, made public in 2009, drew upon a national history of contestation around climate change science and corresponded with the establishment of a scientific assessment network, the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, which has given the state a new platform on which to bring together knowledge about the future climate. I argue that the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment is indicative of the growing use of regional climate models within longer traditions of national territorial knowledge-making, allowing a rescaling of climate change according to local norms and practices of linking scientific knowledge to political action. I illustrate the complex co-production of the epistemic and the normative in climate politics, but also seek to show how co-productionist understandings of science and politics can function as strategic resources in the ongoing negotiation of social order. In this case, scientific rationalities and modes of environmental governance contribute to the contested epistemic construction of territory and the evolving spatiality of the modern nation state under a changing climate.
长期以来，科学计算行为一直被视为现代民族国家形成的核心要素，然而，与气候变化相关的知识生成和政治行动的跨国空间似乎对政治秩序的领土模式构成了挑战。本文通过研究在印度国家层面使气候变化变得可知的方式，探讨了气候预测不断变化的地理情况。政府间气候变化专门委员会对喜马拉雅冰川融化的错误预测引发的近期争议，为审视该委员会与印度政治和科学界之间复杂且有时对立的关系提供了一个窗口。印度对这一在2009年被公开的错误的反应，借鉴了围绕气候变化科学的国家争议历史，并与一个科学评估网络——印度气候变化评估网络的建立相呼应，该网络为国家提供了一个新平台，用以整合关于未来气候的知识。我认为，印度气候变化评估网络表明，在国家领土知识构建的长期传统中，区域气候模型的使用日益增加，从而能够根据将科学知识与政治行动联系起来的地方规范和做法，对气候变化进行重新尺度化。我阐述了气候政治中认知与规范的复杂共同生产，但同时也试图展示对科学与政治的共同生产主义理解如何能够在社会秩序的持续谈判中作为战略资源发挥作用。在这种情况下，科学合理性和环境治理模式有助于在不断变化的气候条件下，对领土的有争议的认知构建以及现代民族国家不断演变的空间性。
