Discussant: Ariadne Collins (University of St. Andrews)

This paper examines the seemingly casual responses of Lakshadweep islanders to climate change and recurring cyclones, which are often mistaken for ignorance or denial. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork since 2017, folk songs, myths, oral histories, and everyday conversations, I argue that these responses emerge from three interlinked practices of recursion, refusal, and relating. The first, a recursion to navigational knowledge in the sailing manuals called Rahmani and wind-call songs, assists in calculating the occurrences of cyclones and monsoonal rhythms. The second, a refusal to accept climate governance and eco-modern interventions, entails the rejection of colonial histories of dependency and foregrounds a need for attending to the everyday struggles of belonging. Finally, the practice of relating to environmental signs and interpreting these through Islamic eschatology elevates the concerns of climate change beyond the “here and now” to embrace the temporality of the “hereafter.” By foregrounding these understandings, the paper calls for an anthropology of climate change that is attentive to seascape epistemologies, refusal and relational thinking with the sea, thereby opening pathways for more collaborative climate action that are attentive to multiple non-linear temporalities.