Becoming a geographical scientist: oral histories of Arctic fieldwork

Powell, Richard C.

doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00314.x

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…To reconstruct livelihood profiles and explore linkages between social relations and tenure systems, oral narratives (Powell, 2008) were obtained from both migrant famers and female farmers as the marginalised groups under direct investigation in this study. These oral narratives provided an in-depth understanding of the livelihood problems encountered by migrant and female farmers with regards to land tenure and climate change adaptations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of land tenure arrangements on the adaptive capacity of marginalized groups: The case of Ghana’s Ejura Sekyedumase and Bongo districts

2015

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Climate change and variability continue to adversely impact on the livelihoods of many, especially agriculture-dependent households, in dryland sub-Saharan Africa. Climate vulnerability is shaped by institutions and socioeconomic processes including land tenure arrangements and infrastructural development. This paper employs a participatory mixed-method approach including household questionnaire surveys, key informant interviews, oral narratives and focus group discussions to understand the dynamics of livelihood challenges in 6 dryland farming communities of different vulnerability status in Ghana. Whilst acknowledging the importance of socioeconomic and environmental processes in influencing climate vulnerability in dryland farming systems, this paper demonstrates how the complex land tenure system is implicitly involved in shaping the vulnerability of two groups of farmers -migrant farmers in the Ejura Sekyedumase District and female farmers in the Bongo District -by limiting the adaptation options available to these two groups. Our results suggest that women's rights regarding land ownership should be formalised in land policy in order to reduce cultural discriminations against women. This highlights that opportunities for women to own and formalise land registration titles should be pursued by the Government of Ghana. This will help women to secure property rights over land and use via mechanisms such as collateral to access credit that could be used to implement climate adaptation practices. The rights of migrant workers should also be recognised in Ghana's land policy to provide them with opportunities for adaptation in a similar manner to non-migrants. This paper demonstrates that smallholder farmers' vulnerability to climate variability and change is shaped by various socio-political and environmental factors. It is, therefore, further recommended that climate change adaptation policies should also consider the broader socioeconomic and environmental factors that could hinder the smallholder farmer's ability to implement various adaptation measures.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of land tenure arrangements on the adaptive capacity of marginalized groups: The case of Ghana’s Ejura Sekyedumase and Bongo districts

2015

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“…The implication of this is that those statements excluded from deliberation, for lack of a technique by which to determine their truth 7 For discussions of the role played by emotion in this social process of epistemic coordination, see Kochan (2013 and2015b) 8 Field science in Northern Canada has received increasing attention from social scientists and historians in recent years. For examples, see: Bravo (1996Bravo ( , 2000, Cruikshank (2001Cruikshank ( , 2005, Powell (2007Powell ( , 2008; and the broad engagements of the Nouvelle Initiative Canadienne en Histoire de l'Environment/Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), catalogued at <niche-canada.org>. 9 Stephen Bocking (2011) offers a useful history of these developments, while Milton Freeman (1985) provides an interesting and pioneering early perspective.…”

Section: The Ruby Range Sheep Steering Committeementioning

confidence: 98%

Objective styles in northern field science

Kochan

2015

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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Social studies of science have often treated natural field sites as extensions of the laboratory. But this overlooks the unique specificities of field sites. While lab sites are usually private spaces with carefully controlled borders, field sites are more typically public spaces with fluid boundaries and diverse inhabitants. Field scientists must therefore often adapt their work to the demands and interests of local agents. I propose to address the difference between lab and field in sociological terms, as a difference in style. A field style treats epistemic alterity as a resource rather than an obstacle for objective knowledge production. A sociological stylistics of the field should thus explain how objective science can co-exist with radical conceptual difference. I discuss examples from the Canadian North, focussing on collaborations between state wildlife biologists and managers, on the one hand, and local Aboriginal Elders and hunters, on the other. I argue that a sociological stylistics of the field can help us to better understand how radically diverse agents may collaborate across cultures in the successful production of reliable natural knowledge.

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“…Implemented by imperial governments, these policies have largely been designed to silence Indigenous voices and delegitimize their cultures and governance structures in place of those of the settler 2 (largely White) populations (Louis, 2007). It has been well documented that geographical practices have played a significant role in the colonial enterprise (Godlewska & Smith, 1994;Painter & Jeffrey, 2009;Powell, 2008). For example, many Indigenous people have been removed from their traditional territories through allotment and physical dispossession (e.g., Reserve/Reservation systems) (Bracken, 1997;Harris, 2002), most Indigenous territories have been reinscribed with European-defined political borders (Alfred, 2005;Simpson, 2008), Indigenous place names have, for the most part, been replaced with names from European homelands or explorers (e.g., the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia named in reference to the UK) (Heikkila, 2007;Simpson, 2008), and colonial governments have claimed sovereignty over Indigenous territories that were, in many cases, unceded.…”

Section: Indigenous -Settler Relationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Settlers unsettled: using field schools and digital stories to transform geographies of ignorance about Indigenous peoples in Canada

Castleden

Daley

Morgan

2013

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

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Geography is a product of colonial processes, and in Canada, the exclusion from educational curricula of Indigenous worldviews and their lived realities has produced "geographies of ignorance". Transformative learning is an approach geographers can use to initiate changes in non-Indigenous student attitudes about Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. This study explores non-Indigenous student perspectives concerning a field school and digital storytelling as transformative experiences within the context of an "Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Management" course; they were asked to reflect on their course experience. Findings indicate that students found both to be effective and important steps in the transformation of their own worldviews.

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Becoming a geographical scientist: oral histories of Arctic fieldwork

Cited by 27 publications

References 71 publications

Impacts of land tenure arrangements on the adaptive capacity of marginalized groups: The case of Ghana’s Ejura Sekyedumase and Bongo districts

Impacts of land tenure arrangements on the adaptive capacity of marginalized groups: The case of Ghana’s Ejura Sekyedumase and Bongo districts

Objective styles in northern field science

Settlers unsettled: using field schools and digital stories to transform geographies of ignorance about Indigenous peoples in Canada

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