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Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate Change: Intersecting Environmental Social Work and Sociology in Climate Change Interventions from an Afrocentric Perspective

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Handbook of Climate Change Management

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Abstract

Climate change and its precarious impacts are taking a toll in African communities despite the low contribution of Africans towards its causes. That being the case, climate change has become a developmental, human rights, social, economic, psychological, health, poverty, and conflict crisis. To note, the challenges posed by climate change on humanity fall within the purview of environmental social work and sociology disciplines. However, these disciplines have been slow in embracing their relevance towards climate action, especially in Africa. Also, African philosophical assumptions in explaining and solving climate crisis on humanity are parochial among these two disciplines. From this, there are tendentious calls for social work and sociology disciplines to be at the frontlines of climate change solutions. Against this backdrop, this study seeks to provide Afrocentric areas of convergence on the roles of environmental social work and sociology in climate change interventions. The notion of Afrocentric reinforces the need to rethink the epistemological and ontological understanding of climate change in the African context using the Social work and Sociological lenses. It triggers the issues of knowledge generation, historicity, agency, sociological questions on relationships between personal biographies, social order, between private, localized practices and problems associated with our changing climate. Ultimately, the reseachers suggest that environmental social workers and sociologists need to depend on the full repertoire of their disciplines in order to establish a critical-constructive relation between their own ways of thinking and the tenets of Afrocentricity in order to provide sustainable climate change interventions relevant in the African context.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Research Administration and Development, University of Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa

    Louis Nyahunda PhD Environmental Social Work

  2. Department of Research Administration and Development, University of Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa

    Happy Mathew Tirivangasi

Authors
  1. Louis Nyahunda PhD Environmental Social Work
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  2. Happy Mathew Tirivangasi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FTZ-ALS, HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. School of Social Sciences, CHC Higher Education, Carindale, Australia

    Johannes Luetz

  3. Center for Food Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Desalegn Ayal

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Nyahunda, L., Tirivangasi, H.M. (2021). Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate Change: Intersecting Environmental Social Work and Sociology in Climate Change Interventions from an Afrocentric Perspective. In: Leal Filho, W., Luetz, J., Ayal, D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22759-3_282-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22759-3_282-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22759-3

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