Competing causalities: The politics of disaster attribution between climate finance and community narratives
Article
Friedman, E, Look, C. (2026). Competing causalities: The politics of disaster attribution between climate finance and community narratives
. Geoforum, 173 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104659
Friedman, E, Look, C. (2026). Competing causalities: The politics of disaster attribution between climate finance and community narratives
. Geoforum, 173 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104659
How disasters are explained and understood plays a key role in determining which adaptation responses are considered possible. International climate finance frameworks shape climate adaptation approaches in the Caribbean by promoting specific narratives around disaster causation and response. Yet questions remain about whose explanations gain institutional recognition and whose remain excluded from adaptation planning, particularly regarding the disconnect between top-down financing approaches and community-based understandings of vulnerability. This paper examines these tensions in two of Antigua’s flood-prone watersheds, applying politics of disaster attribution theory to understand how certain explanatory narratives come to dominate climate adaptation planning. We employ a mixed-methods research design, incorporating data triangulation through document content analysis (n = 37), ethnographic observation, and interviews with government stakeholders and community members (n = 59). Results show that climate finance frameworks emphasize financial deficiency and individual responsibility, while systematically excluding community counter-narratives on the structural drivers of flood vulnerability. These findings suggest that climate finance narratives operate as a depoliticizing force that marginalizes community lived experience with disaster. This risks increasing long-term disaster costs by directing adaptation investments toward market-based interventions that leave structural drivers unaddressed.
