Cluster 3 Theme: Climate change models and response - ‘Working with uncertainty: models, epistemic plurality and the possibilities of

Panel Kasia Paprocki, London School of Economics ‘Opportunity/Crisis: On Climate Change and the Politics of Uncertainty in Bangladesh.’ If uncertainty is ‘worked with’ and ‘worked around’ in understanding and responding to climate change and environmental hazards, then it is also often produced and practiced to shape landscapes and communities. [...] In so doing, I highlight the instability of the categories of certainty and uncertainty and how knowledge is enrolled in the production of each. [...] Is there thus scope for incorporation of different knowledges about disease and its emergence, ascertaining what is known, by whom, and how, and how different states and forms of knowledge might interconnect? Questions • What are the assumptions around risk and uncertainty within initiatives to predict and respond to disease emergence? • How do different pandemic preparedness and response institut. [...] Models are likely to be based on linear models of behavioural change, and ignore the social science ‘contextual’ factors of disease emergence: (i) the structural limitations of the context, (ii) the different socio-cultural conceptions of the diseases, their aetiology and means of transmission, (iii) the importance of first- hand experience, (iv) the risk calculations of policy-makers; and (v) the. [...] Put simply – the behaviour of affected populations will be influenced by the outbreak itself, changes in behaviour will affect the trajectory of the outbreak, and this will again affect the behaviour of the population leading to a constantly evolving interaction between the outbreak and the behaviour of the population.