Ecological Sensemaking as a Recursive Process of Indigenous Climate Adaptation: Evidence from the Santal Community of Bangladesh.

Climate adaptation research has focused more on adaptive capacity, technological innovation, and resilience, and less on the interpretive processes that lie before adaptive action. In this study, ecological sensemaking is investigated as a factor influencing agricultural decision-making among the Santal indigenous community in Barind region, which is prone to drought in Bangladesh. The research employed an interpretivist paradigm using thematic analysis of 25 semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that adaptation starts with the ongoing process of interpreting ecological cues in a way that is negotiated through indigenous ecological knowledge, lived experience, scientific information, and social interaction. Four interrelated themes account for the process of the construction of ecological meanings, their translation to agricultural and livelihood practices, and how they are constrained by structural conditions. The study goes beyond organizational contexts to describe and explain ecological sensemaking, reconceptualizing indigenous ecological knowledge as a process of environmental meaning-making, and proposes a process-based conceptual model for climate adaptation in the face of ecological uncertainty. The study extends Weick's Sensemaking Theory by conceptualizing ecological sensemaking as a recursive, relational, and structurally mediated process operating within Indigenous socio-ecological systems, thereby offering a theoretically grounded understanding of climate adaptation beyond organizational settings.