Social limits to adaptation in the context of intangible cultural heritage

Amid mounting evidence of limited progress in adapting to climate change, scholarship on the limits to adaptation is gaining renewed momentum. Nevertheless, there remains a dearth of studies examining human systems explicitly from the perspective of how and why the limits to adaptation have been exceeded. Such retrospective studies can shed light on why these limits were exceeded in the first place and how communities responded. This article explores these issues in the context of intangible cultural heritage affected by climate change. It finds that adaptation faces biophysical constraints that are, in most cases, insurmountable. For this reason, efforts to overcome them are rare. In contrast, responses to the impacts of climate change on intangible cultural heritage are more common. They encompass four main types of actions: practical, organisational, culture grounded, and psychology informed. The article illustrates these issues with examples drawn from the scientific literature. It concludes by reflecting on the temporal dimension of limits to adaptation. • Intangible cultural heritage is rarely the focus of studies on climate change impacts. • Adaptation for intangible heritage appears to face biophysical constraints, and to a lesser extent, governance-related ones too. • Four types of responses can be identified when adaptation limits are exceeded for intangible cultural heritage. • For intangible cultural heritage, social limits to adaptation shift comparatively more markedly over time.