Mary Joe Hannaford
Biographic Data
| ID | 1381882 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mary Joe Hannaford |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mary Joe |
| FAMILY NAME | Hannaford |
| SIGNATURE | HANNAFORD M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lincoln |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9982-9868 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 88 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Becoming Underutilised
The material properties of ‘underutilised’ indigenous African crops have gained increasing attention in efforts to combat food insecurity. Understanding the opportunities and barriers to reviving indigenous crops today must begin by making sense of how such foodstuffs became underutilised in the first place. This article traces the transformation of foodways centred around indigenous crops in colonial Kenya (1890s–1963). Drawing on archival evide…
The case for history in planning future food systems transformations
Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making
Climate risk continues to be framed ostensibly in terms of physical, socio-economic and/or ecological risks, as evidenced in the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) evidence reports. This article argues that framing climate risk in this way remains problematic for the science-policy process, particularly in ensuring adequate climate risk assessment information translates into more effective adaptation decision-making. We argue …
Environmental Historical Geographies
Environmental historical geography is a diverse, dynamic and active subfield with close connections to environmental history. Here, I examine developments in three overarching and overlapping themes within the subfield: environmental reconstruction, environmental knowledges and discourses, and environmental impacts and interventions. For each area, I highlight recent approaches to, and applications of, environmental historical geography. I also d…
Disasters and History
Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but…
Climate and society in long‐term perspective
Recent advances in paleoclimatology and the growing digital availability of large historical datasets on human activity have created new opportunities to investigate long‐term interactions between climate and society. However, noncritical use of historical datasets can create pitfalls, resulting in misleading findings that may become entrenched as accepted knowledge. We demonstrate pitfalls in the content, use and interpretation of historical dat…
Climate, Conflict and Society
Changing climates affect human societies differently depending on societal structures, cultural perceptions and their relative vulnerability and resilience. In this study, we explore the complex relationship between climate, conflict and society in nineteenth century Zululand. The paper first reviews current debates surrounding the links between climatic change, societal transformation and the rise of the Zulu Kingdom from the late-eighteenth to …
Pre-Colonial South-East Africa
In recent years, historical research on the pre-colonial period in the area between the Zambezi and Limpopo has almost ground to a standstill. A number of seminal works on the economic and social history of the area appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, each of which were underpinned by the documentary legacy of the Portuguese presence in the region from the beginning of the 16th century. Since the 1990s, it has been archaeologists that have taken up …
Re-thinking the present
Toward integrated historical climate research
[Article in WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:164–174. The Nottingham based project exploring Documentary reconstructions of extreme weather events in the UK, past, present and future, is funded through the AHRC, Grant number: AH/K005782/1. 'The Snows of Yesteryear: Narrating Extreme Weather' Project, based at the University of Wales, was funded by the AHRC, award number AH/K502765/1
Climate, history, society over the last millennium in southeast Africa
Climate variability has been causally linked to the transformation of society in pre‐industrial southeast Africa. A growing critique, however, challenges the simplicity of ideas that identify climate as an agent of past societal change; arguing instead that the value of historical climate–society research lies in understanding human vulnerability and resilience, as well as how past societies framed, responded and adapted to climatic phenomena. We…
Toward integrated historical climate research
Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerab…
Climate Variability and Societal Dynamics in Pre-Colonial Southern African History (AD 900-1840)
The role of climate variability in pre-colonial southern African history is highly disputed. We here provide a synthesis and critique of climate-society discourses relating to two regionally-defining periods of state formation and disaggregation. The first period involves the eleventh-thirteenth century development of socio-political complexity and the rise of southern Africa's first state, Mapungubwe, followed by its collapse and the shift in re…
Early-nineteenth-century southern African precipitation reconstructions from ships’ logbooks
Atmospheric circulation in the oceans surrounding southern Africa plays an important role in determining its precipitation. This study uses wind information recorded in ships’ logbooks in order to statistically reconstruct summer and winter season precipitation at four southern African weather stations from 1796 to 1854. The reconstruction was obtained by first relating gridded 8° × 8° NCEP-DOE reanalysis seasonal mean wind vectors in the adjacen…
The Search for Direction
Re-thinking the present
Disasters and History
Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but…
Toward integrated historical climate research
Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerab…
Climate Variability and Societal Dynamics in Pre-Colonial Southern African History (AD 900-1840)
The role of climate variability in pre-colonial southern African history is highly disputed. We here provide a synthesis and critique of climate-society discourses relating to two regionally-defining periods of state formation and disaggregation. The first period involves the eleventh-thirteenth century development of socio-political complexity and the rise of southern Africa's first state, Mapungubwe, followed by its collapse and the shift in re…
Early-nineteenth-century southern African precipitation reconstructions from ships’ logbooks
Atmospheric circulation in the oceans surrounding southern Africa plays an important role in determining its precipitation. This study uses wind information recorded in ships’ logbooks in order to statistically reconstruct summer and winter season precipitation at four southern African weather stations from 1796 to 1854. The reconstruction was obtained by first relating gridded 8° × 8° NCEP-DOE reanalysis seasonal mean wind vectors in the adjacen…
Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making
Climate risk continues to be framed ostensibly in terms of physical, socio-economic and/or ecological risks, as evidenced in the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) evidence reports. This article argues that framing climate risk in this way remains problematic for the science-policy process, particularly in ensuring adequate climate risk assessment information translates into more effective adaptation decision-making. We argue …
Climate, Conflict and Society
Changing climates affect human societies differently depending on societal structures, cultural perceptions and their relative vulnerability and resilience. In this study, we explore the complex relationship between climate, conflict and society in nineteenth century Zululand. The paper first reviews current debates surrounding the links between climatic change, societal transformation and the rise of the Zulu Kingdom from the late-eighteenth to …
The case for history in planning future food systems transformations
Climate, history, society over the last millennium in southeast Africa
Climate variability has been causally linked to the transformation of society in pre‐industrial southeast Africa. A growing critique, however, challenges the simplicity of ideas that identify climate as an agent of past societal change; arguing instead that the value of historical climate–society research lies in understanding human vulnerability and resilience, as well as how past societies framed, responded and adapted to climatic phenomena. We…
The Search for Direction
Climate Variability and Societal Dynamics in Pre-Colonial Southern African History (AD 900-1840)
The role of climate variability in pre-colonial southern African history is highly disputed. We here provide a synthesis and critique of climate-society discourses relating to two regionally-defining periods of state formation and disaggregation. The first period involves the eleventh-thirteenth century development of socio-political complexity and the rise of southern Africa's first state, Mapungubwe, followed by its collapse and the shift in re…
Early-nineteenth-century southern African precipitation reconstructions from ships’ logbooks
Atmospheric circulation in the oceans surrounding southern Africa plays an important role in determining its precipitation. This study uses wind information recorded in ships’ logbooks in order to statistically reconstruct summer and winter season precipitation at four southern African weather stations from 1796 to 1854. The reconstruction was obtained by first relating gridded 8° × 8° NCEP-DOE reanalysis seasonal mean wind vectors in the adjacen…
Toward integrated historical climate research
[Article in WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:164–174. The Nottingham based project exploring Documentary reconstructions of extreme weather events in the UK, past, present and future, is funded through the AHRC, Grant number: AH/K005782/1. 'The Snows of Yesteryear: Narrating Extreme Weather' Project, based at the University of Wales, was funded by the AHRC, award number AH/K502765/1
Climate, history, society over the last millennium in southeast Africa
Climate variability has been causally linked to the transformation of society in pre‐industrial southeast Africa. A growing critique, however, challenges the simplicity of ideas that identify climate as an agent of past societal change; arguing instead that the value of historical climate–society research lies in understanding human vulnerability and resilience, as well as how past societies framed, responded and adapted to climatic phenomena. We…
Toward integrated historical climate research
Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerab…
Re-thinking the present
Climate, Conflict and Society
Changing climates affect human societies differently depending on societal structures, cultural perceptions and their relative vulnerability and resilience. In this study, we explore the complex relationship between climate, conflict and society in nineteenth century Zululand. The paper first reviews current debates surrounding the links between climatic change, societal transformation and the rise of the Zulu Kingdom from the late-eighteenth to …
Pre-Colonial South-East Africa
In recent years, historical research on the pre-colonial period in the area between the Zambezi and Limpopo has almost ground to a standstill. A number of seminal works on the economic and social history of the area appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, each of which were underpinned by the documentary legacy of the Portuguese presence in the region from the beginning of the 16th century. Since the 1990s, it has been archaeologists that have taken up …
Climate and society in long‐term perspective
Recent advances in paleoclimatology and the growing digital availability of large historical datasets on human activity have created new opportunities to investigate long‐term interactions between climate and society. However, noncritical use of historical datasets can create pitfalls, resulting in misleading findings that may become entrenched as accepted knowledge. We demonstrate pitfalls in the content, use and interpretation of historical dat…
Disasters and History
Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but…
Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making
Climate risk continues to be framed ostensibly in terms of physical, socio-economic and/or ecological risks, as evidenced in the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) evidence reports. This article argues that framing climate risk in this way remains problematic for the science-policy process, particularly in ensuring adequate climate risk assessment information translates into more effective adaptation decision-making. We argue …
Environmental Historical Geographies
Environmental historical geography is a diverse, dynamic and active subfield with close connections to environmental history. Here, I examine developments in three overarching and overlapping themes within the subfield: environmental reconstruction, environmental knowledges and discourses, and environmental impacts and interventions. For each area, I highlight recent approaches to, and applications of, environmental historical geography. I also d…
The case for history in planning future food systems transformations
Becoming Underutilised
The material properties of ‘underutilised’ indigenous African crops have gained increasing attention in efforts to combat food insecurity. Understanding the opportunities and barriers to reviving indigenous crops today must begin by making sense of how such foodstuffs became underutilised in the first place. This article traces the transformation of foodways centred around indigenous crops in colonial Kenya (1890s–1963). Drawing on archival evide…
Geography (10 works) · Climate change (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Ecology (7 works) · History (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Environmental ethics (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works)