Spatial and Temporal References of Climate-Related Vulnerability and Risk Perception

The physical injuries that are attributed to the consequences of climate change take a wide variety of forms and are unevenly distributed both spatially and socially. The contribution discusses the theoretical and empirical relevance of spatial and temporal distance for the bodily experience of risk perceptions of climate-related injuries in the present. Even if people do not yet see their individual lifestyle and physical integrity directly affected by the consequences of climate change, they seem to be increasingly affected by their own vulnerability in the present. In this process, spatial references to regions where the consequences of the climate crisis are much more visible play a central role. Looking at the socio-political discourse, it becomes clear that it is quite controversial whether these physical injuries can also be understood as violence. However, the debate on the phenomenology of suffering from violence shows that the relationship between vulnerability and violence is also negotiated on a theoretical level. The significance of spatial references in this context remains largely unexamined in the debate.

Based on biographical-narrative interviews with people from Germany who are involved in climate policy, the contribution focuses on how spatial and temporal references structure climate-related perceptions of vulnerability and the subjective experience of violence. It highlights the spatial reference points for the perception of risk potentials and vulnerability and the spatial strategies that are developed in order to react to them.

From a socio-theoretical perspective, the presentation ties in with recent social science debates in which the relationship between climate change and violence has been problematized from different angles in recent years. Furthermore, it uses the phenomenon of climate-related vulnerability to outline the question of how the space-time relationship in the risk perception of vulnerability and violence can also be conceptualized in terms of social theory.