Coastal dwellers-power against climate change: a place-based perspective on individual and collective engagement in North Frisia

Climate change induces non-linear and unevenly distributed changes, such rising sea levels and extreme weather events that materialise on the regional level and considerably contribute to changes in the social fabric of regions, communities and places. Because of the need for societal responses, an in-depth understanding of individual and collective forms of engagement with climate change is of growing relevance. To contribute to close this gap, this paper applies a place-based approach for investigating how people’s place attachments and meanings inform individual and collective engagement with climate change. As a case study, the district of North Frisia (Germany) was chosen, a region between climate-change vulnerability and renewable-energy potential. Qualitative interviews and a household survey with coastal dwellers of the municipality of Reußenköge have been conducted, a group discussion with the Country Youth (Landjugend) and further interviews with experts from government, companies and associations spread over North Frisia and in Kiel. The results reveal two main findings: firstly, place-dependent attachments and meanings play a pivotal role for understanding people’s engagement with climate change, and secondly, the behavioural dimension of engagement involves diverse adaptation and mitigation measures adopted on individual and collective level. In sum, the findings conceptually and empirically reveal the importance of memories, experiences, knowledge and creativity for how people engage with climate change, but also exhibit the importance of policies mobilising community-based actions.