Does ANT Have Heuristic Value in Thinking About and Managing the Impacts of Climate Change?

• In Event: Practical Limits of ANT and Explorations in Other Conceptual Frameworks

Abstract

This presentation is a case study that focuses on an example from coastal Virginia. The Norfolk, Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach region on the coast of Virginia includes the world’s largest naval station, the 14th (Norfolk) and 27th (Newport News) largest ports by tonnage and an expanding population. The author is a co-PI on a CRISP award from NSF focused on how to manage flooding and traffic in this are as climate change alters the system. This presentation will consider whether applying ANT to this system will provide any useful insights or recommendations.

ANT is not a formal theory that makes predictions, instead it is a heuristic framework that emphasizes the way in which a variety of actors need to become linked in a network to tackle problems like climate change, with varying levels of inclusion among the actors, who themselves form their own local networks, e.g., the Navy and its suppliers and contractors, the Office of Resilience of the City of Norfolk and other state government agencies working on ways to make the system more resilient with respect to climate change, and a wide variety of NGOs, citizens, groups, businesses, etc. One of the complexities of this system is that all of the local actor networks are dependent on actors all over the planet who are collectively causing the climate change that threatens this coast.

Author

• Michael E Gorman, UVA