Study title

The research seeks to explore how rural communities may be impacted by social and environmental changes associated with climate change. In particular it assesses the degree to which three drivers of rural transition - governmental policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation, alternative/counter-cultural visions and practices, and environmental changes associated with climate change - might present quite contrasting futures for rural communities, and how rural communities might variously engage with, adapt to and drive forward particular futures. The project seeks to facilitate engagements between experts on these three drivers of rural change and to develop rural climate change mitigation and adaptation scenarios. These scenarios will then be examined with respect to three rural communities, with visual representations of potential futures being created and then presented to and discussed with residents in these communities. The degree of engagement, resistance and transformation of the scenarios will be examined by the research team, who will also present their findings on community responses to the expert steering committee. The project will involve interdisciplinary research and creative knowledge transfer that connects hitherto disconnected knowledge communities and examines the processes of engagement and learning between them.