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Towards Imagining the Big Picture and the Finer Details: Exploring Global Applications of a Local and Scientific Knowledge Exchange Methodology

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Grounding Global Climate Change

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Abstract

Local knowledge informs scientific and applied understandings (development, climate change adaptation, etc.) by showing the diversity of ways in which global phenomena are affecting local cultures and ecosystems. However, is there similar value for affected communities? Can global understandings inform local knowledge and, furthermore, can the two knowledge systems inform each other? If so, what could be a model of such knowledge exchange and is there a performative context to bring about such informing? This chapter argues yes, based on a series of successful knowledge exchanges conducted in northeastern Siberia in 2010. The chapter takes this process to the next step, to explore how a model for such knowledge exchanges could potentially be adapted to several different world contexts. The chapter begins with an overview of why such exchanges are important in our twenty-first century world and how the method was developed in the Siberian case. It then discusses relevant results, before moving to explore the ways in which the model could inform other world contexts, using cases from Labrador, Canada and Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Place-based peoples’ refers to people who are: (1) directly dependent on their immediate environment for their daily sustenance; and (2) have inhabited an area for a long enough time to have the necessary situated local knowledge to be successful in that direct and daily dependence.

  2. 2.

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  3. 3.

    International Polar Year.

  4. 4.

    Compare also Christoph Kueffer’s contribution Chap. 2, in this volume.

  5. 5.

    Exchange of Local Observations and Knowledge in the Arctic.

  6. 6.

    Compare Claudia Grill’s Chap. 6, in this volume regarding cyclical notions of environmental change.

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Acknowledgments

I first acknowledge all inhabitants, project collaborators, research assistants and in-country specialists in the Sakha Republic, Siberia, Russia, the Labrador/Nunatsiavut, Canada and Dorchester County, Maryland involved in the research that this article is founded upon. I also acknowledge the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs, Arctic Social Science Program Grant 0710935 “Assessing Knowledge, Resilience & Adaptation and Policy Needs in Northern Russian Villages Experiencing Unprecedented Climate Change,” NSF Office of Polar Programs, Arctic Science Program Grant 0902146 “Understanding Climate-Driven Phenological Change: Observations, Adaptations and Cultural Implications in Northeastern Siberia and Labrador/Nunatsiavut (PHENARC),” and NSF Division of Cultural Anthropology Grant 1027140 “Cultural Models, Community Adaptation and Climate Change for the Chesapeake Bay.” Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. I gratefully acknowledge and thank the NSF. For reading and providing invaluable feedback based upon their expertise, I thank Heike Greschke and Julia Tischler.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, David King Hall, MS 5F2 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA, 22030-4400, USA

    Susan A. Crate

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  1. Susan A. Crate
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Correspondence to Susan A. Crate .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology – Faculty of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Hessen, Germany

    Heike Greschke

  2. International Research Center “Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History”, Humboldt University, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Julia Tischler

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Crate, S.A. (2015). Towards Imagining the Big Picture and the Finer Details: Exploring Global Applications of a Local and Scientific Knowledge Exchange Methodology. In: Greschke, H., Tischler, J. (eds) Grounding Global Climate Change. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9322-3_9

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