Disputation: Jossias Humbane
Title: “Magude isn't like it used to be”: Intersections of social and climate change in Mozambique
Date: 16 December 2025
Time: 09:15
Location: Online, Uppsala
- Datum: 16 december 2025, kl. 9.15
- Plats: Geijersalen Eng 6-1023, Thunbergsvägen 3H, Uppsala
- Typ: Disputation
- Respondent: Jossias Humbane
- Opponent: Tobias Haller
- Handledare: Mats Utas, Vladislava Vladimirova, Esmeralda Mariano
- Forskningsämne: Kulturantropologi
- DiVA
Abstract
This thesis examines how rural communities in Magude, southern Mozambique, experience, interpret, and respond to climate change. Drawing on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork that combined participant observation, in-depth interviews, and oral testimonies, it explores how smallholder farmers, herders, and fishermen perceive and cope with environmental disruptions such as droughts, irregular rainfall, and extreme weather. The study shows how these experiences are shaped by historical memory, cultural beliefs, and everyday struggles, highlighting the importance of traditional ecological knowledge and lived experience in shaping local responses to climate change. Community narratives reveal that climatic changes are understood not only as environmental phenomena but also as social and moral events, often linked to divine punishment, conflict, and the erosion of traditional values.