Collaborative Research: Event Ecology and Extreme Events as Transformative Factors in Pastoral Social-Ecological Systems

合作研究：事件生态学和极端事件作为牧区社会生态系统的变革因素

• 批准号: 1533552
• 负责人: J. Terrence McCabe
• 金额: $ 27.52万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1533552&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Event; Ecology; Extreme

Extreme events, such as severe droughts, flooding, and disease epidemics, are known to result in major social, economic, political, and environmental transformations. The effects may include new constraints on land use and livelihood patterns, altered access to crucial resources, impacts on biodiversity, and long term public health problems. Cumulatively, there are often far-reaching consequences for local and national economies. However, outcomes vary from case to case and surprisingly little is known about why some extreme events result in societal transformation while others of similar magnitude do not. In this project, a team of anthropologists asks the question: Under what conditions do transformations occur as a result of an extreme event? This research focuses on the response of Maasai communities in northern Tanzania to the devastating drought of 2008-2009. The local people claim this drought to be the worst in living memory, stimulating massive migration of livestock and people from southern Kenya and northern Tanzania into neighboring areas in northern Tanzania, with dramatic loss of livestock. The drought was followed by significant changes in land use and traditional institutions and practices, including previously unseen restrictions on who is allowed access to the crucial resources of water and pasture. The researchers will probe why these transformative responses occurred during and following this particular drought but not following previous droughts in recent decades that were equally or more severe. The research will entail ethnographic fieldwork and surveys involving households and village leaders in Maasai villages that were on both the sending and receiving ends of the migration during the drought. The research is designed to reveal how and why responses to the recent drought differed from the past; how the impact of the drought proceeded through a series of phases; and how experiences, decisions, and innovations in one area influenced other areas and, ultimately, the social-ecological system as a whole. The investigators have done research in this area since the mid-1990s and thus have a deep understanding of and detailed baseline data on traditional livelihood patterns and past responses to crises, as well as relationships with local communities that will help ensure accurate assessment of how and why people responded to the drought as they did and what the implications of changing local practices are likely to be. Understanding the responses to extreme events in this case where the situation is well understood and the local-level processes can be identified and followed over time and space will have a direct bearing on planning efforts to cope with the effects of future climatic events and other problems wherever they may occur.

众所周知，严重的干旱，洪水和疾病流行病等极端事件会导致重大的社会，经济，政治和环境转变。这些影响可能包括对土地使用和生计模式的新限制，对重要资源的机会改变，对生物多样性的影响以及长期的公共卫生问题。 累积地，对于地方和国民经济来说，通常会产生深远的后果。 但是，结果因情况而异，而且令人惊讶的是，为什么某些极端事件导致社会转变，而其他类似级别的事件则不了解。 在这个项目中，人类学家团队问一个问题：在极端事件中发生转换的条件下发生什么情况？这项研究的重点是坦桑尼亚北部的马赛社区对2008 - 2009年毁灭性干旱的反应。 当地人民声称这种干旱是生命记忆中最糟糕的一种，刺激了牲畜的大规模迁徙以及从肯尼亚南部和坦桑尼亚北部迁移到坦桑尼亚北部的邻近地区，并遭受了巨大的牲畜损失。干旱之后，土地使用以及传统机构和实践发生了重大变化，包括以前看不见的限制，允许谁获得水和牧场的关键资源。 研究人员将探讨为什么这些变革性反应发生在这种特殊的干旱期间和之后，而不是近几十年来与以前的干旱相同或更严重的干旱。 这项研究将需要民族志实地调查和调查，涉及马赛村的家庭和乡村领导人，这些村庄都处于干旱期间的发送和接收末端。 该研究旨在揭示如何以及为什么对最近的干旱的反应与过去不同。干旱的影响如何通过一系列阶段进行；以及一个领域的经验，决策和创新如何影响其他领域，最终影响整个社会生态系统。 研究人员自1990年代中期以来就在这一领域进行了研究，因此对传统生计模式和过去对危机的反应以及与当地社区的关系有深刻的了解和详细的基准数据，以及与当地社区的关系，这些数据将有助于确保人们对干旱的反应以及为什么对自己的干旱做出的反应以及为什么不断变化的地方实践的含义可能是可能的。在这种情况下，了解情况对极端事件的响应得到充分了解，并且可以在时间和空间中识别并遵循的地方层面的过程将有直接影响计划努力，以应对未来的气候事件和其他可能发生的其他问题的影响。