The discursive construction of adaptation subjects via the Ada Sea Defense System in the Volta River Delta of Ghana

Abstract

As climate adaptation gains international prominence as one means for addressing climate change, it remains critical that just and equitable outcomes are maintained as adaptation technologies are deployed across various target populations. In this vein, subjectivity has been problematized by climate change adaptation scholars as a concept that needs further attention to understand the political nature of climate change adaptation. Extending frameworks of environmentality to cases of climate change adaptation, we engage the term adaptation subjects to distinguish individuals whose interests and desires align with broader understandings and goals of climate change adaptation. In this research, we situate the co-production of livelihoods and climate change adaptation interventions as projects of rule to understand subject-formation. Such an analysis allows for a move beyond econocentric framings of livelihoods that privilege material outcomes to also engage with the socio-political realities of these livelihoods and climate change adaptation more broadly. We apply the Livelihoods as Intimate Government approach to a case study of the Ada Sea Defense System in the Ada East District of the Volta River Delta of Ghana as a climate change adaptation project of rule, in order to illustrate the ways this adaptation technology discursively constructs (or not) different residents as adaptation subjects. Understanding the Ada Sea Defense System as a technology of adaptation constituted through socio-political practices has the potential to promote justice and equity when designing, implementing and evaluating such technologies in the future.