Unknowing the World: Humans, Chimpanzees, and Climate Change in Sierra Leone

FAIN: FEL-288357-23

Catherine Bolten
University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)

Research and writing leading to a book on the social dimensions of rapid climate change among six villages and two chimpanzee communities in Sierra Leone.

This book project argues that the primary issue humans and other species face on a planet ravaged by climate change is more than a problem to be solved by science; it is about the ability to know one’s self, and thus one’s place in the world. By focusing on the lives and worlds of six villages, two chimpanzee communities, disappearing forest and dying farmland in Sierra Leone, West Africa, I argue that surviving in climate change is, at its core, a trans-species philosophical question, for science cannot create a technical fix for the inability to be at home in the world.