Three ways social identity shapes climate change adaptation

Adaptation to climate change is inescapably influenced by processes of social identity – how people perceive themselves, others, and their place in the world around them. Yet there is sparse evidence into the specific ways in which identity processes shape adaptation planning and responses. This paper proposes three key ways to understand the relationship between identity formation and adaptation processes: 1) how social identities change in response to perceived climate change risks and threats; 2) how identity change may be an objective of adaptation; and 3) how identity issues can constrain or enable adaptive action. It examines these three areas of focus through a synthesis of evidence on community responses to flooding and subsequent policy responses in Somerset county, UK and the Gippsland East region in Australia, based on indepth longitudinal data collected among those experiencing and enacting adaptation. The results show that adaptation policies are more likely to be effective when they give individuals confidence in the continuity of their in-groups, enhance the self-esteem of these groups, and develop their sense of self-efficacy. These processes of identity formation and evolution are therefore central to individual and collective responses to climate risks.

Empowering Teens to Make a Difference in Their At-Risk Community

When identifying problems and creating solutions that support the community culture of health, youths provide a unique perspective. This article describes how staff from Somerset County, NJ 4-H partnered with staff from Middle Earth, an at-risk youth service provider, to organize a group of teens who identified and implemented projects that affect the health and wellness of their community of Bound Brook, NJ. Extension professionals can replicate a sustainable and synergistic youth-adult partnership by creating the opportunities, making the initial connections within the community, and following the 4-H club model to ensure teens experience the essential elements.

Family and Early Life

This chapter tells the story of Blake’s childhood in Baltimore. It relates his family lineage and his father’s life as a slave, and the life of the Blake family in Somerset County, Maryland. It highlights his father’s work as a stevedore, beginning in the Civil War period, on Baltimore’s docks. This chapter also discusses the upbringing of his strict and religious mother, beginning with her life in an orphanage. Eubie’s first encounters with racism are described, particularly as he was taunted by neighboring white children as he made his way to school. It also describes Eubie’s early interest in and talent for music; his early keyboard training by a neighboring woman and his first attempts to create his own music. The chapter also discusses his first professional work playing at Aggie Shelton’s bawdy house.

Albemarle and Other Fringes, 1661–1674

This chapter describes the alternative societies built by radicals in the borderlands of the Chesapeake. John Jenkins and others created a sanctuary in the Albemarle region of North Carolina. There, Quakers and Levelers were welcome. After William Berkeley suppressed servant rebellions in Virginia, some Quakers found refuge in Somerset County, Maryland. In all these frontier places that governors could not control, radicals deviated from political, social, and cultural norms. But at the same time, the big planters of Tidewater Virginia were making the shift to a slave labor force.

Hamilton Waters and the Struggle for Freedom and Education

This chapter examines what shaped Harry T. Burleigh and from what surroundings he came. The story of Harry T. Burleigh begins on March 5, 1832, in Somerset County, Maryland, when his grandfather, Hamilton Elzie Waters, arranged to purchase his freedom for fifty dollars and that of his mother, Elizabeth Lovey Waters, for five dollars, from slaveholder James Tilghman. In 1835 Hamilton Waters and his mother migrated from Maryland to Ithaca, New York. Later in 1838 the Waters family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania. The history of the educational opportunities available to African Americans in nineteenth-century Erie reflects the progressive nature of the abolitionist movement as well as its ironies. Harry's mother, Lovey Waters, instilled in her son the belief that no dream of achievement was unattainable. And through his early relationship with his grandfather, young Harry absorbed Hamilton Waters's belief in his entitlement to full citizenship as well as a knowledge of the distinctive cultural heritage through which those who were enslaved transcended the pain and the limitations of their captivity.