Beyond technocracy: Why local knowledge is the cornerstone of climate adaptation in conflict-affected cities

Abstract

Climate adaptation scholarship and practice are often shaped by technocratic approaches that prioritize engineered solutions, quantitative risk modeling, and centralized planning. While such approaches can be effective in stable institutional contexts, they are frequently ill-suited to conflict-affected cities, where fragmented governance, infrastructural damage, and contested authority shape how climate risks are experienced and managed. This Perspective argues that the marginalization of local knowledge in these settings is not merely a technical limitation but a political challenge that can reproduce vulnerability and reinforce existing power asymmetries. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature from climate adaptation, urban studies, and conflict research, the paper conceptualizes conflict-affected cities as spaces of compound risk, where climate hazards and violence interact in ways that strain conventional adaptation logics. It advances the view that local knowledge should be understood not as supplementary input to technocratic planning, but as a core adaptive resource embedded in everyday practices, informal governance arrangements, and social networks. By reframing climate adaptation around legitimacy, trust, and lived experience, this Perspective calls for more context-sensitive and politically aware approaches to adaptation in fragile urban environments. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates on climate adaptation by foregrounding the epistemic and governance challenges of adapting to climate change under conditions of conflict and instability.