Knowledge flows in climate change adaptation: exploring friction between scales

Abstract

Effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation (CCA) into related policy and development initiatives relies on comprehensive knowledge sharing between multiple stakeholders. In Bangladesh, community-based adaptation (CBA) practitioners are critical for facilitating communication among global, national and local scales. They can also take responsibility for finding appropriate channels through which to share relevant information. Interviews with CBA practitioners examine how knowledge is gained and transmitted between practitioners and other CCA stakeholders, focusing on the challenges experienced. These challenges represent friction in knowledge transmittal. Key to lubricating smooth knowledge flows is an understanding of the specific contexts within which knowledge is to be exchanged. At the professional level, multidisciplinary knowledge must be made accessible through provision of widely comprehensible content shared in an appropriate format. At the local level, understandings of trust, priorities and power relations are vital for ensuring relevance in the knowledge shared by professional stakeholders. Mobilizing appropriate knowledge can allow widespread comprehension of adaptation aims, enabling the mainstreaming of CCA and ensuring that resulting action is beneficial at the local level, for communities that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.