An event-based methodology for climate change and human–environment research

Abstract

Abductive causal eventism (ACE) is an analytical methodology based on a pragmatic view of research methods and explanation that places at the center of research inquiry the answering of ‘why’ questions about events, including human actions or environmental changes of interest. When used in human–environment research, the methodology entails constructing causal histories of interrelated social and/or biophysical events backward in time through a process of eliminative inference and reasoning from effects to causes, called abduction. ACE encourages an eclectic use of methods, models, and theoretical ideas. It fosters integrative, interdisciplinary analysis without being committed either to systems as ontological entities or to holistic analytical frameworks. By not privileging particular theories or explanatory factors in advance, ACE enables researchers to interrogate the plausibility of different causal influences, including local environmental changes that may be related to much wider changes in climate. Likewise, behaviors or practices that may be of value in light of anticipated environmental changes can be studied without their presuming to be caused by these changes or by changes in climate per se. Research on coastal mangrove planting for storm protection in the Philippines and upland tree planting in St. Lucia are used to illustrate these arguments.

Keywords:

• abductive causal eventism
• event ecology
• research methodology
• tree planting
• Philippines
• St. Lucia

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the WaterWorlds team at the University of Copenhagen, especially Jonas Nielsen and Annette Reenberg, for providing me with the opportunity to participate in the workshop that produced this volume of papers. Thanks to Pete Vayda and anonymous reviewers for critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also thank the many individuals and organizations that supported my field research, especially the Forestry Division and Soufriere Marine Management Authority in St. Lucia, and Silliman University and the City of Bais in the Philippines. The field research in St. Lucia was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.