This paper presents the use of thematic collages as a methodological innovation to participatory photography as a research framework. Participatory photography was used to understand the subjective “off-script” motivations behind the full or partial adoption of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) by members of women’s self-help groups in Andhra Pradesh, India. The addition of thematic collages to existing participatory photography methods was developed as a mechanism to better support the dialogic generation of new Freirean “generative themes” for investigation by a group. Further, the use of thematic collages invites the integration of “renegade” or non-thematic images into participant group analysis. ZBNF is an agricultural practice that has become an extension priority in Andhra Pradesh. It emphasizes the use of defined chemical-free inputs and regenerative farming techniques as a holistic approach toward socio-ecological resilience. As part of an interdisciplinary research project, this participatory photography design was piloted parallel to a soil science experiment in three geographically distinct agroecological zones in Andhra Pradesh. We show how participatory photography, with the novel addition of thematic collages, can be integrated into interdisciplinary research as a method to discover the underlying motivations to adopt agricultural practices and participate in agricultural movements like Zero Budget Natural Farming.

No abstract

Decision makers need actionable information on the factors that inhibit household adaptation to climate variability and other changes, especially those changes reinforcing environmentally unsustainable livelihood strategies. In this paper, we show how a combination of quantitative and qualitative data can help assess current livelihood vulnerability and the social and institutional obstacles facing specific population groups that lock in risk and undermine opportunities. Detailed analysis of current household economies in two case study communities (one in Uganda and one in Kenya) in the Lake Victoria Basin, East Africa, was combined with a qualitative, intersectional exploration of constraints on income adaptation and diversification. Quantitative household economy analysis showed low levels of household disposable income overall and additionally, poor returns on investment from enterprises typically controlled by women. Qualitative research highlighted changes in gender roles driven by women's entrepreneurial responses to reduced household income from traditional agricultural and natural resource-based activities. However, due to unequal access to finance and culturally mediated norms and expectations, many women's enterprises were small scale and insecure. The broader political economy context is one of limited national investment in education and infrastructure, further constraining local opportunities for human and economic development. The approach described here was directed by the need to understand and quantify economic vulnerability, along with the cultural and institutional constraints on adaptation, as a basis for making better adaptation policies and interventions to build resilience over the longer term.

If rural adaptation is to be effective, then it cannot take the form of prescriptive actions determined by outsiders and subsequently imposed upon rural communities. Our focus in this chapter is to reflect on the effectiveness of rural adaptation in the context of food security and agriculture in Uganda and provide insight into a way forward using learning from the HyCRISTAL project rural pilot. We critically explore the boundaries of ‘adaptation’ and ‘resilience’ as policy responses to climate change in poor rural communities through the interdisciplinary use of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, including innovative visual methods and action research. We identify some of the limits to building adaptive communities and explore potential solutions for enabling informed decision-making for rural adaptation that are linked to investment in sustainable development. We highlight the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches and the generation of a ‘knowledge ecosystem’ that combines physical and social science methods and data to generate context-specific information to inform decision-making.

In a world of changing climate risks, the humanitarian sector is facing an unprecedented future of changing hazard profiles and increasingly complex decision-making scenarios. Individuals, communities and disaster managers need to re-examine their way of analyzing information and learn how to make decisions founded on uncertainty rather than historical trends. As a result of this increasingly dynamic future, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre decided to re-examine its own strategies for communicating complex climate risk management concepts by engaging with the arts through the use of games and participatory video.