Forecasts

A Story of Weather and Finance at the Edge of Disaster

Caroline Schuster, Enrique Bernardou, David Bueno

$49.99

Paperback

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English

University of Toronto Press
30 May 2023

Graphic novels; Environmental economics

Series: ethnoGRAPHIC

This collaborative graphic novel explores issues of capitalism and climate change in Paraguay, raising questions about the limits of survival for humans, their food crops, and rural ways of life.

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.

The graphic novel is followed by appendices that provide historical, anthropological, and methodological insights, as well as classroom guides, exercises, and questions that make this book ideal for teaching.

By: Caroline Schuster
Illustrated by: Enrique Bernardou, David Bueno
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781487542238
ISBN 10: 1487542232
Series: ethnoGRAPHIC
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 30 May 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Caroline E. Schuster is an associate professor in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University. Enrique Bernardou is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Paraguay. David Bueno is a graphic designer based in Paraguay.

Reviews for Forecasts: A Story of Weather and Finance at the Edge of Disaster

"""Forecasts deftly introduces readers to the visual iconography of Paraguay and the complexity of global climate finance. The book is brought together by fine storytelling, from Schuster's writing to Bernardou and Bueno's illustrations to the ethnographic heart of the work.. Their stories offer both humor and a robust analysis of daily life at the edge of global forces, teasing the line between possible worlds."" - Christine Folch, Duke University ""Darkly serious, wittily executed, and beguilingly illustrated, Schuster and her colleagues zero in on the predictions of those who would profit from the ongoing climate disaster and the lives of those caught up in the wake of increasingly extreme weather. Farmers come to life alongside techno-utopian entrepreneurs as we see, hear, and sense what the intertwining of climate change and finance means for remote Paraguay, and for an increasingly unimaginable planet."" - Bill Maurer, University of California, Irvine ""With its stunning graphics, moving storytelling, and lucid unpacking of the complex financial instruments shaping the present and future of sesame farmers in Paraguay, Forecasts opens new pathways to understanding - and hopefully transcending - the climate catastrophe in which we are all entangled."" - Julia Elyachar, Princeton University"