“It won't be any good to have democracy if we don't have a country”: Climate change and the politics of synecdoche in the Maldives

I argue that arming climate change solutions became a state-making device in the Maldives, whose fragile coral atoll ecosystem itself became the synecdoche of a young democracy. Between 2008 and 2012, how was environmental knowledge creation understood as a democratic activity? To answer this question, I draw on ethnographic interview testimony and participant-observation in Malé, the Maldivian capital, with politicians, activists, and city residents, as well as an analysis of the Nasheed administration's public rhetoric. The article centers on the case of Bluepeace, the country's oldest environmental NGO, which has seen significant international publicity. Following Bluepeace's efforts to help the Maldives achieve carbon neutrality by 2020-part of Nasheed's plan to end global climate change through exemplary national sacrifice-this article finds that climate problem solving and democracy were put to work for one another through small-scale mitigation and adaptation experiments.