The critical geography of community-based participatory research for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Alaska

阿拉斯加气候变化适应和减少灾害风险社区参与研究的关键地理

• 批准号: 2113218
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2113218
• 关键词: critical; geography; community; based; participatory

Context The impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities are expected to be more significant than on non-indigenous communities, as they have closer ties to their environment. However, Indigenous communities also have in-depth knowledge about their environment, which has been created and adjusted over thousands of years, and been passed down through generations. The ways that these communities use this knowledge to deal with climate change, as well as other risks (e.g. volcanic eruption, blizzards and pollution) has become an important area of climate change research. With this recognition, there have been more projects that have sought to understand Indigenous knowledge to better inform ways of dealing with climate change and environmental risk. Most of these also seek to combine Indigenous knowledge with scientific knowledge, as both are important for dealing with risk. They use methods that involve local people, and try to reach those that would not otherwise be involved in research. This is important to better understand the challenges that those who are most at risk face. As well as this, both local people and the researchers are encouraged to learn from each other, especially as this builds trust between the two. Although these projects are valuable in their own right, they pose significant challenges that are not always properly addressed. For example, although these methods try to reach community members that would not usually be engaged in these projects, communities have their own politics, which mean that some members may prevent others from taking part. How researchers deal with this is a topic of debate: some argue that researchers who are not from the community should challenge these situations, but this does not always work. One place where this could be difficult is in Arctic Alaskan Indigenous communities, where a history of oppression has led to distrust of people outside of the community, especially researchers who have often entered a community to collect data, but have failed to share their results or to provide benefits to the community. There is also concern that some projects are claiming to use these methods that involve the community, even where they do not, which has led to misleading results and ethical problems. Climate change is being felt earlier and most intensely in the Arctic. In Northern Alaska, seasonal changes have reduced the safety of hunting for whales and geese, which Indigenous communities rely on for food. As well as this, less sea ice has left soft beaches exposed to storms, which flood the community, causing damage and the potential for loss of life. Changes in how people live have affected how they deal with risk. For example, modern housing (which is permanent) means that people cannot migrate with the seasons, which was once a way of dealing with the harsh environment to increase chances of finding food. Objective Many projects have already looked at how local people deal with climate change risk and environmental risk in Alaska. Yet, few projects have looked at how these projects were conducted, and the impact that researchers, who were not a part of the studied community, had on the community. To make better use of the valuable research already conducted in Alaska, the ways that scientific research is used (and not used) by local communities needs to be better understood, which includes how researchers are viewed by these communities. This is something that a number of researchers working in climate change and environmental studies have called for. Therefore, the aim of this project is to examine the ways scientific research and outside researchers are used in Indigenous communities in the North Slope Borough, Alaska, for action on climate change and environmental risk

气候变化对土著社区的影响预计将比对非土著社区的影响更大，因为他们与环境的关系更密切。然而，土著社区也对他们的环境有深入的了解，这些环境是数千年来创造和调整的，并代代相传。这些社区如何利用这些知识来应对气候变化以及其他风险（如火山爆发、暴风雪和污染），已成为气候变化研究的一个重要领域。有了这一认识，有更多的项目试图了解土著知识，以更好地为应对气候变化和环境风险提供信息。其中大多数还力求将联合收割机土著知识与科学知识结合起来，因为两者对处理风险都很重要。他们使用的方法，涉及当地人民，并试图达到那些否则不会参与研究。这对于更好地了解那些风险最大的人所面临的挑战至关重要。除此之外，当地人和研究人员都被鼓励相互学习，特别是因为这建立了两者之间的信任。虽然这些项目本身就很有价值，但它们构成了重大挑战，并不总是得到适当处理。例如，虽然这些方法试图接触通常不参与这些项目的社区成员，但社区有自己的政治，这意味着一些成员可能会阻止其他人参与。研究人员如何处理这一问题是一个争论的话题：一些人认为，研究人员谁不是从社区应该挑战这些情况，但这并不总是工作。这可能很困难的一个地方是在北极阿拉斯加土著社区，那里的压迫历史导致了对社区以外的人的不信任，特别是那些经常进入社区收集数据的研究人员，但未能分享他们的结果或为社区提供利益。还有人担心，一些项目声称使用这些涉及社区的方法，即使他们没有，这导致了误导性的结果和道德问题。气候变化在北极地区感受得最早、最强烈。在北方阿拉斯加，季节的变化降低了捕鲸和鹅的安全性，土著社区依赖这些食物。除此之外，海冰减少使柔软的海滩暴露在风暴中，风暴淹没了社区，造成破坏和生命损失的可能性。人们生活方式的变化影响了他们应对风险的方式。例如，现代住房（永久性的）意味着人们不能随着季节迁移，这曾经是应对恶劣环境以增加寻找食物机会的一种方式。许多项目已经研究了阿拉斯加当地人如何应对气候变化风险和环境风险。然而，很少有项目研究这些项目是如何进行的，以及研究人员对社区的影响，他们不是研究社区的一部分。为了更好地利用阿拉斯加已经进行的有价值的研究，需要更好地了解当地社区使用（和不使用）科学研究的方式，包括这些社区如何看待研究人员。这是许多从事气候变化和环境研究的研究人员所呼吁的。因此，本项目的目的是研究科学研究和外部研究人员在阿拉斯加北坡自治市的土著社区中用于应对气候变化和环境风险的方法