Indexing the soil 37
the technocratic hopes for governing weather-related risks, attending to the
financial formalisation of environmental data reveals a relatively traditional
insurance product.
Conclusions: Bypassing climate change with index insurance
Starting with ecological data and finishing with market analysis, index
insurance constructs a form of market transaction that seeks to condense
and configure into risks the uncertain relationship that farmers have with
the soil. RM creates a perspective on how World Bank economists reflect
the use of digital infrastructures in deliberate forms of socioeconomic planning. Yet, the reported failures of the index insurance programme also point
to difficulties in formalising climate change as risks that can be combined
with a functional financial instrument (Angeli Aguiton 2020; Johnson 2021).
Other scholars have recently discussed situations where taking into account
the dynamics of climate risks is made possible by new and updated models but where the political will to use such ‘realistic’ models is lacking and
conflicts ensue (Elliott 2021; Gray 2021). At the core of political tensions is
the question concerning if and how risks that change can be reliably calculated, and if yes, what practical effects it will have that they are taken into
account. In this context it is noteworthy that even major reinsurers, such
as Munich Re, have recently advertised their capacity to handle expertly
‘risks that change’ (Lehtonen 2017: 40). This provides an interesting contrast to RM, in which the modellers end up suggesting that the dynamics of
(climate) change be completely bypassed. A palpable tension ensues. While
RM presents index insurance as a novel and progressive tool with which
environmental hazards can be managed, and while it relies heavily on simulations for providing its knowledge base, that is, the reality that it models is
thoroughly ‘enacted,’ at the same time, its form of dealing with temporality
comes close to what Collier (2008) has termed ‘archival-statistical’ knowledge, characteristic of a traditional form of insurance where it is not taken
into account that risks can change.
How index insurance, in the form promoted by RM, produces predictions
of environmental risks is difficult to justify in terms of climate change-related
uncertainties that are already apparent in many places of the world. In RM,
the soil is made visible and manageable by relying heavily on probability simulations that ignore local relations, even though it is these relations that define
how humans depend on their ecological surroundings. Indeed, index insurance
in the form advanced by RM appears to offer a closed system, even though
openness to the changing dynamics of the climate should be underscored.
References
Angeli Aguiton, S 2019, ‘Fragile transfers. Index insurance and the circuits of climate risk in Senegal’, Nature and Culture, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 282–298.
the technocratic hopes for governing weather-related risks, attending to the
financial formalisation of environmental data reveals a relatively traditional
insurance product.
Conclusions: Bypassing climate change with index insurance
Starting with ecological data and finishing with market analysis, index
insurance constructs a form of market transaction that seeks to condense
and configure into risks the uncertain relationship that farmers have with
the soil. RM creates a perspective on how World Bank economists reflect
the use of digital infrastructures in deliberate forms of socioeconomic planning. Yet, the reported failures of the index insurance programme also point
to difficulties in formalising climate change as risks that can be combined
with a functional financial instrument (Angeli Aguiton 2020; Johnson 2021).
Other scholars have recently discussed situations where taking into account
the dynamics of climate risks is made possible by new and updated models but where the political will to use such ‘realistic’ models is lacking and
conflicts ensue (Elliott 2021; Gray 2021). At the core of political tensions is
the question concerning if and how risks that change can be reliably calculated, and if yes, what practical effects it will have that they are taken into
account. In this context it is noteworthy that even major reinsurers, such
as Munich Re, have recently advertised their capacity to handle expertly
‘risks that change’ (Lehtonen 2017: 40). This provides an interesting contrast to RM, in which the modellers end up suggesting that the dynamics of
(climate) change be completely bypassed. A palpable tension ensues. While
RM presents index insurance as a novel and progressive tool with which
environmental hazards can be managed, and while it relies heavily on simulations for providing its knowledge base, that is, the reality that it models is
thoroughly ‘enacted,’ at the same time, its form of dealing with temporality
comes close to what Collier (2008) has termed ‘archival-statistical’ knowledge, characteristic of a traditional form of insurance where it is not taken
into account that risks can change.
How index insurance, in the form promoted by RM, produces predictions
of environmental risks is difficult to justify in terms of climate change-related
uncertainties that are already apparent in many places of the world. In RM,
the soil is made visible and manageable by relying heavily on probability simulations that ignore local relations, even though it is these relations that define
how humans depend on their ecological surroundings. Indeed, index insurance
in the form advanced by RM appears to offer a closed system, even though
openness to the changing dynamics of the climate should be underscored.
References
Angeli Aguiton, S 2019, ‘Fragile transfers. Index insurance and the circuits of climate risk in Senegal’, Nature and Culture, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 282–298.