Making Sense of Local Climate Change in Rural Tanzania Through Knowledge Co-Production

Abstract

Shifting climate parameters and their rippling effects through social-ecological systems have altered the abilities of rural households and communities around the world to make livelihood decisions based on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). National and regional climate services are responding, but the information they provide may not meet local needs or concerns in an accessible format. Previous anthropological research suggests that integrating different knowledge systems to improve climate services, assist in local decision-making, and strengthen climate models remains problematic. To reduce or avoid some of these problems, a participatory, community-based environmental monitoring project was co-developed with residents of four rural Tanzanian communities. A field team brought in equipment and facilitated the training of local monitors, while communities chose the environmental sectors to monitor, collected and analyzed data, and evaluated the results in light of their local TEK. This interaction between scientists and participating community members highlights the value of knowledge co-production in making sense of environmental changes associated with climate that are observed and experienced at the local level. These activities also empowered communities to explore local climate adaptation and policy creation.

A critical political ecology of human dimensions of climate change: Epistemology, ontology, and ethics

“…There are several discursive and practical maneuvers that enable apolitical framings of the co‐production of knowledge for climate adaptation to go unchallenged. First, the idea of “integration” of multiple knowledges is central to many conceptualizations of co‐production (Armitage et al, ; Brugnach et al, ; Dale & Armitage, ; Mauser et al, ; Shaffer, ). In many cases, there is emphasis on “adding” indigenous or local perspectives to scientific accounts of climatic change.…”

“…There has been a corresponding growth of literature aimed at addressing these politics. This includes calls for: critical analyses of adaptation discourse and practice (de Wit, ; O'Brien, Eriksen, Nygaard, & Schjolden, ; Ribot, ; Webber, ; Weisser, Bollig, Doevenspeck, & Müller‐Mahn, ); context‐specific and theoretically rich studies of resilience (Cote & Nightingale, ; Shah, Angeles, & Harris, ); a more thorough integration of “indigenous” knowledge with climate science through co‐production processes (Brugnach, Craps, & Dewulf, ; Naess, ; Schuttenberg & Guth, 2015); and a recognition of ontological as well as epistemological differences in understanding the effects of, and reactions to, climate change (Armitage, Berkes, Dale, Kocho‐Schellenberg, & Patton, ; Blok, ; Daly, ; Goldman, Daly, & Lovell, ; Hegger, Van Zeijl‐Rozema, & Dieperink, ; Homsy & Warner, ; Lövbrand, ; Nightingale, ; Ogden et al, ; Shaffer, ; Simon & Randalls, ; Yeh, ). In other words, the politics of climate change knowledge are not only about knowledge making per se but are also associated with world‐making practices.…”

Towards an Interdisciplinary Focus on Sound in Ethnobiology Research

“…Whereas soundscape ecologists are now using recorders to monitor environmental health (Pijanowski 2016), ethnobiologists have, for decades, studied communities that use sound as indicators of environmental dynamics (Hunn 1992;Schaffer 2014). Unfortunately, most ethnobiological literature mentioned such data peripherally.…”

Protected area management under climate change: A framework for decision making

“…It is being used in climate change adaptation projects (Armitage et al 2011;Hegger et al 2012;Nagy et al 2014;Shaffer 2014), protected area management (Ungar & Strand 2012;Cvitanovic et al 2014a), and adaptive management and capacity (Robinson & Berkes 2011;Cvitanovic et al 2015;Alessa et al 2016). Use of co-production of knowledge is…”