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Adaptation to climate change has become a major policy and project focus for donors and governments globally. In this article, we provide insight into how adaptation projects mobilize distinct imaginaries and knowledge claims that create territories for intervention (the objects) as well as targeted populations (the subjects) to sustain them. Drawing on two emblematic climate change adaptation projects in Ecuador, we show how these objects and subjects are created through a knowledge production process that (a) creates a discursive climate change rationale; (b) sidesteps uncertainty related to climate change impacts; (c) fosters a circular citational practice that (self-)reinforces the project's expert knowledge; and (d) makes complex social variables commensurable based on the project's rationality, interests, and quantifiable indicators. The emerging hydrosocial territories ‘in need of intervention’ require subjects that inhabit, produce and reproduce these territories, in accordance with specific climate change discourses and practices. To manufacture and align these subjects, projects employ participatory practices that are informed by recognition politics aimed at disciplining participants toward particular identities and ways of thinking and acting. We analyze these distinct strategies as multiple governmentalities enacted through participatory adaptation projects seeking to produce specific climate change resilient hydrosocial territories and corresponding subjects.

The electric utility industry is an important player in the climate change arena, both as a significant emitter of global emissions and as an industry vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. A climate risk management approach uses risk assessments and decision analyses to identify potential adaptation options. We review the existing literature on climate risk management in the electric utility industry, with a focus on four areas of interest: (1) climate change impacts; (2) measurements of risk; (3) stakeholder engagement and cross-sectoral collaboration; and (4) adaptation actions. Overall, we find significant emphasis on the identification of potential climate change impacts and opportunities for adaptation, but less attention paid to assessments of risk, stakeholder engagement, and cross-sectoral collaboration in climate risk management. We find considerable diversity in the types of adaptation actions, methods for measuring risk, and mechanisms for engaging stakeholders. We offer some suggestions to move beyond more fragmented approaches to climate risk management, including the adoption of more holistic approaches, heightened stakeholder and cross-sectoral engagement, and greater collaboration between researchers and electric utilities. Keywords: Electric utility industry, Climate risk, Adaptation, Stakeholders

International Water Security Network - Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF); U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) [GEO-1138881, SGP-CRA005]; NSF [CRN3056, GEO-1128040, DEB-1010495]