Abstract
Native American communities along the Gulf of Mexico, separated in significant ways from contemporary tools and technology, experience and cope with weather extremes in unique and largely unknown ways. From one generation to the next there has been little communication between science, where advanced tools of warning and survival can be derived, and community, where lessons of “living off the land” can inform science of the most pressing needs and the most practical and useful technologies to fill them. This chapter describes a successful and ongoing science/community relationship to address immediate pressures of extreme weather and the resilience to confront potential threats from forces extant, including climate variability and human exploitation of natural resources. Lessons learned here, particularly those of communication and collaboration, apply around the world where both global science and self-supporting communities have become isolated from one another.
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Notes
- 1.
“New” as used in the human community sense rather than in a purely ecosystem or engineering manner.
- 2.
A fisheries biologist presenting to the Society of Applied Anthropology a few years ago outlined a model of engagement for the harvesters and agency scientists who meet to determine fishing seasons and catch size: Always hold meetings that require an overnight so that the attendees can meet and visit at the bar in the hotel. These encounters are experienced as some of the safest locations for honest conversation about contentious issues.
- 3.
Single loop is the positivist approach, hypothesis testing. Double loop is the application but not taking the idea any farther. The triple loop is the process of continuing to refine, i.e. the action/reflection process “ad naseum” (Argyris 1994).
- 4.
Whyte (2013)
“It is sometimes assumed that TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) is only instrumentally valuable to climate science because it is observational knowledge collected over generations. However, TEK best refers to a persisting system of responsibilities. McGregor, for example, defines TEK as the relations among “knowledge, people, and all Creation (the ‘natural’ world as well as the spiritual)…[it is the] process of participating (a verb) fully and responsibly in such relationships, rather than specifically as the knowledge gained from such experiences. For Aboriginal people, TEK is not just about understanding relationships, it is the relationship with Creation. TEK is something one does” (McGregor 2008, p. 145). TEK actually refers to entire systems of responsibilities that are intrinsically valuable insofar as the systems are at the very heart of communities’ worldviews and lifeways. The inclusion of TEK in adaptation, management and stewardship strategies is actually about respecting systems of responsibilities. It means creating inclusive research practices that are not only about sharing stories of knowledge, but about sharing understanding of a host of responsibilities that should play integral roles in adaptation, management and stewardship strategies. Institutions that govern or fund research can shelter TEK systems of responsibilities by doing what it takes to ensure their robust participation well beyond the provision of accumulated observations of some landscape. More importantly, TEK concerns tribal strategies for adaptation that are based on tribal systems of responsibilities and the worldviews/cosmologies such systems flow from. Collaboration across science and TEK systems must involve conversations about how different groups of people understand the nature of reality and responsibility (McGregor 2008).”
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the community members of Grand Bayou and Pointe-au-Chien who patiently participated in the climate change discussions and who have been diligently working for the sustainability of their own communities and for the betterment of all. Without the contribution of the community members of Grand Bayou this account and the study on which it is largely based would not have been possible.
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Peterson, K.J. et al. (2016). Refining the Process of Science Support for Communities Around Extreme Weather Events and Climate Impacts. In: Steinberg, S., Sprigg, W. (eds) Extreme Weather, Health, and Communities. Extreme Weather and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30626-1_7
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