Outputs

You can find a summary of the project’s key insights in this series of vignettes, tracing the emergence of smart climate adaptation. Made by Dr. Shakthi Nataraj, who illustrates as The Artful Anthropologist.

View the Visual Explainer:
https://www.digitalclimatefutures.org.uk/index.php/visual-highlights/

Published

Gioli, G. and Bettini, G. (2026). Smart adaptation or data colonialism? Interrogating the role of digital technologies in climate adaptation. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486251409982

Under Review

Gioli, G. and Bettini, G. “From space to village”: How climate services colonised agrarian futures. Under peer-review.

Pancholi, V. S. Digital adaptation, algorithmic coloniality, and vernacular climate politics: Contesting digital governance in Bihar’s agricultural just transitions. Under peer-review.

Pancholi, V. S. Exclusion and agency in digital climate adaptation: Everyday struggles over MGNREGA technology in Bihar. Under peer-review.

Drawing on our research findings, we have produced a toolkit for academics and practitioners working on digital climate adaptation. Read the toolkit here

Following the session organised by the project team at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in 2024, the editorial team of GEO: Geography and Environment invited the team to submit a proposal for a themed section in the journal.

The journal is an internationally peer-reviewed publication of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), and reflects a strong thematic fit with current debates on decolonising climate geography.

The title of the themed section is “De- or re-colonising climate adaptation? Indigenous and Local knowledges in the climate adaptation machine“

Two papers have already been published (“Cultural Heritage in Motion: Adaptive Mobile Cultures of (Semi)nomadic Indigenous People in Changing Climates” and “The Amazonian Common Use Territory: Pluriverse or Insurgent Universality?” ), with three further contributions currently under review.

Sessions Organised

Bettini, G. and Schumacher, J. (2025). Political and economic values of experimentation in environmental governance. STS Conference Graz, 5–7 May 2025.

Gioli, G., Bettini, G., Sullivan, S. and Pancholi, V. S. (2024). De- or re-colonising climate adaptation? RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 28–30 August 2024.

Presentations

Pancholi, V. S. (2026). Algorithmic coloniality and vernacular climate politics: Contesting digital governance in Bihar’s agricultural adaptation. Department of Politics and Public Administration Spring Seminar Series (online), 4 March 2026.

Pancholi, V. S. (2026). Digital coloniality and climate adaptation: Epistemic violence, material dispossession, and vernacular politics in Bihar’s agricultural sector. DSAI Annual Conference, Trinity College Dublin, 15–16 January 2026.

Pancholi, V. S. (2025). Navigating extraction and solidarity in digital climate adaptation research. BISA CPD Workshop, Queen Mary University of London, 1 December 2025.

Bettini, G. (2025). Failing forward? Experimentation, failure and the politics of smart climate adaptation. Lancaster University, 19 May 2025.

Pancholi, V. S. (2025). Examining resistance for transformative adaptation: Digital adaptation in Bihar, India. ESRC Digital Good Network, University of Sheffield, 14–15 May 2025.

Bettini, G. and Gioli, G. (2025). STS Conference Graz, 5–7 May 2025.

Gioli, G., Bettini, G., Sullivan, S. and Pancholi, V. S. (2024). Digitalising climate futures? POLLEN Political Ecology Network Conference, Lund, Sweden, 10–12 June 2024.Pancholi, V. S. (2024). Digital climate adaptation and ethics of care. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 28–30 August 2024.

Dr Vidya Pancholi shares findings from fieldwork in Bihar, mapping digital agriculture initiatives and documenting resistance to digital coloniality.

35 apps and counting: Mapping Bihar’s digital agriculture experiment
Read here: https://pollenpoliticalecology.network/35-apps-and-counting-mapping-bihars-digital-agriculture-experiment/

We are not weak: Resistance to digital coloniality
Read Here: https://pollenpoliticalecology.network/we-are-not-weak-resistance-to-digital-coloniality-in-bihars-climate-adaptation/