Barbuda: Changing Times, Changing Tides

181 Pages·2022·35.431 MB·English

by  Sophia Perdikaris, Rebecca Boger

Barbuda
This volume explores a range of themes including impacts of climate change,
resilience, sustainability, indigeneity, cultural genocide, disaster capitalism,
preservation of biodiversity, and environmental degradation. Focusing on
the island of Barbuda in the West Indies, it shares critical insights into how
climate change is reshaping our world. The book examines how climate
has changed in the Caribbean over different spatial and temporal scales
and how varying natural and anthropogenic factors have shaped Barbuda’s
climatic and cultural history. It highlights projections of 21st-century
climate change for the Caribbean region and its likely impacts on Barbuda’s
coastal ecosystems, potable groundwater resources, and heritage. With
essays by researchers from the United States, Canada, Caribbean, and
Europe, this volume straddles a range of disciplines such as archaeology,
anthropology, paleoclimatology, environmental sciences, science education,
and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
Drawing on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches that
explore the intersection of natural and social systems over the longue
durée, the volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and students
of ethnography, social anthropology, climate action, development studies,
public policy, and climate change.
Sophia Perdikaris is Director of Global Integrative Studies (the home of
Anthropology, Geography, and Global Studies) and Happold Professor
of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. Her area
is environmental archaeology with a specialty in animal bones from
archaeological sites. She is interested in people–environment interactions
through time and the response of both to big climatic events.
Rebecca Boger is Professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New
York (CUNY), USA, and has a background in geospatial technologies,
environmental science, and science education. Her research in Barbuda
examines socio-ecological resilience, sustainability, environmental/climate
change modeling, and community-based mapping.
Critical Climate Studies
Managing Editors: May Joseph (US), Kavita Philip (Canada)
Commissioning Editors: El Glasberg (US), A. J. James (India)
The Critical Climate Studies book series is located in the transdisciplinary space
that crosscuts the social sciences, humanities, creative writing, environmental
studies, and climate science. Scholarship and activism are powerful but often
invisible global forces, trapped in the interstices. We seek to draw attention and
analysis to such domains. The series welcomes short books that experiment
with holistic engagement, critique, and conversation about climate change,
broadly conceived. In addition to nuanced academic prose from all disciplines,
the series embraces multi-genre writing, experimental ethnographies, creative
non-fiction, lyrical sociology, ficto-critical writing, as well as science-humanities
collaborations. We encourage contributions that are investigative, immersive,
and attentive to the understudied and obscured planetary transformations
taking hold as climate change accelerates. Our interests lie in large debates as
well as in the understudied regions and microhistories of the world, where the
impact of the planet’s climate convulsions generate altered experiences and
analyses of ontologies, geographies, ecologies, and political economies.
Barbuda
Changing Times, Changing Tides
Edited by Sophia Perdikaris and Rebecca Boger
Aquatopia
Climate Interventions
May Joseph and Sofia Varino
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www .routledge.
com /Critical -Climate -Studies /book -series /CCS
Barbuda
Changing Times, Changing Tides
Edited by Sophia Perdikaris and
Rebecca Boger
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Sophia Perdikaris; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Sophia Perdikaris to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-032-32639-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-39014-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-34799-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003347996
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
This volume is dedicated to the People of Barbuda and all
their friends and supporters
In Memoriam Papa Joe and Mrs. Frances Beazer
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Tables x
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xiv
Preface xv
SOPHIA PERDIKARIS AND EDITH GONZALEZ
Introduction 1
SOPHIA PERDIKARIS AND REBECCA BOGER
1 A long-term perspective of climate change in the Caribbean
and its impacts on the island of Barbuda 11
MICHAEL J. BURN, REBECCA BOGER, JONATHAN HOLMES, AND ALLISON BAIN
2 Water use and availability on Barbuda from the colonial times
to the present: An intersection of natural and social systems 40
REBECCA BOGER AND SOPHIA PERDIKARIS
3 Developing agency and resilience in the face of climate
change: Ways of knowing, feeling, and practicing through
art and science 59
JENNIFER D. ADAMS AND NOEL HEFELE
4 Fallow deer: The unprotected biocultural heritage of Barbuda 79
NAOMI SYKES
5 From the far ground to the near ground: Barbuda’s shifting
agricultural practices 91
AMY E. POTTER
6 Written with lightning: Filming Barbuda before the storm 111
RUSSELL LEIGH SHARMAN
7 Disaster capitalism: Who has a right to control their future? 132
EMIRA IBRAHIMPAŠIĆ, SOPHIA PERDIKARIS, AND REBECCA BOGER
Index 155
Figures
1.1 Map of Barbuda 12
1.2 Seasonal summer (a) and winter (b) patterns of the
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), the North Atlantic
Subtropical High (NAH), and the Caribbean Low-Level
Jet (CLLJ) 14
1.3 Seasonal monthly average precipitation by zone in the Caribbean 15
1.4 Caribbean climate records reconstructed from sediment
cores taken in the Cariaco Basin, Venezuela, and Lake
Miragoane,
Haiti 19
1.5 400-year reconstruction of effective precipitation from lake
sediment cores 23
1.6 Sea level rise of 0.5 m 29
1.7 Storm surge estimates for Hurricane Irma 30
2.1 Average monthly precipitation and temperatures for Barbuda 41
2.2 Hurricane tracks that have passed within 65 nautical miles
of Barbuda 43
2.3 Comparison of satellite imagery taken before and after
Hurricane Irma 44
2.4 Rainfall between January 2014 and July 2019 44
2.5 Map of historic wells, caves, and geology of Barbuda 46
2.6 Aerial photo of Beazer Well showing the general layout of
many of the historic wells 47
2.7 Map showing the geology, location, and average salinity
values of the wells sampled 48
2.8 (a)–(c) Graphs showing salinity between 2014 and 2019 51
2.9 Salinity values for the well on the Secondary school grounds
near Indigo well 52
2.10 Salinity values for Sam Spring well 53
2.11 Fork in the road adjacent to William well, located to the
left of the car 54
Figures ix
3.1 The first mural 68
3.2 Children in front of mural painted on school building 69
3.3 Sea Will Rise, Barbuda Will Survive mural 71
4.1 Antigua and Barbuda’s national coat of arms (Antigua and
Barbuda Consulate) 81
4.2 Coat color variant seen in the Barbuda deer population 82
5.1 Map of backyard garden in park, Codrington Village 103
5.2 Map of backyard garden in big pond outside of Codrington 104
6.1 Papa Joe 112
6.2 Miss Fancy 114
6.3 Eugene 118
6.4 The Hopkins family 121
6.5 Frances Beazer 124
6.6 Speedy 127
7.1 Map of Barbuda showing the Ramsar site, airport
excavation, and recent or proposed tourism developments
mainly financed by John Paul Dejoria 134
7.2 Estimates of the extent of the storm surge from Hurricane
Irma based on elevation models, National Oceanic &
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) surge estimate of 2.43
m and field observations made in December 2017 140
7.3 Map of Barbudan’s vision for eight different areas based on
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), cultural heritage,
and understanding of ecology 143
7.4 Maps showing two different areas identified by the visioning
exercise. The National Park and Goat Flash area are within
the Ramsar protected wetland site 144