Forecasts: A Story of Weather and Finance at the Edge of Disaster (ethnoGRAPHIC)

Description

Based in the agrarian world of commercial sesame farming in northern Paraguay, Forecasts tells a story about what happens when global insurance companies promise financial safety nets to local farmers struggling with the effects of climate change. This striking graphic novel brings together original ethnographic research and Paraguayan gothic art to confront the limitations of finance to respond to a deteriorating environment. Taking a human-centered approach to complex weather and financial models, Forecasts offers new ways of looking at overlapping speculative futures in a more-than-human landscape. Based on more than a year of fieldwork in Paraguay, the book follows one man’s possible journeys through a season of planting and harvesting, buffeted by losses and sustained by the hope that he can cultivate conditions that will help his family thrive. Forecasts makes a sweeping account of environmental and financial risk accessible through the intimate story of one family’s triumphs, heartbreaks, and hopes for the future. Cover Half-Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Foreword: Critical Graphics: From Eco-Disaster Survivance
to Mytho-Speculative Thrivance Preface: The Paraguayan Pantheon Acknowledgments Forecasts Appendix A: Bestiary Appendix B: Anthropology of Finance Capital and Climate Change Appendix C: Agrarian Transformations Appendix D: Anthropological Methods for Forecasts Appendix E: An Interview with the Creators Appendix F: Making of Forecasts Notes Works Cited