The entire world population was taken by surprise by the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has transformed our lives through its impact on health systems, the economy, on work and the way that we work, and has created feelings of uncertainty about the future. We intend to reflect on how the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed academic life in general, but primarily how it has affected our research projects, given the closure of the field of study and the isolation of interlocutors. We reflect on the adoption of digital methods to communicate with our interlocutors and interviewees and its implications and ask ourselves when fieldwork will open up once more.
This short essay introduces a forum made up of six Reflection pieces on what it means to carry on a PhD research in the social sciences amid a pandemic. Sparked by discussions held during the 2020 edition of the "Open Day" of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, this forum collects solo-authored and collective texts that focus on a number of dimensions along two main threads: the problems, uncertainties and potentialities of researching in these times; and similar reflections with specific focus on gendered dimensions. Together, though situated (all these researchers work in or about Portugal and Brazil), we hope these experiences will speak to peers around the world that are dealing with the pains and challenges of these times.
Natural resource conservation concerns have been prevalent around the world, and a range of solutions has been implemented to prevent their depletion. This paper brings together the literature on the commons and on behavioral principles to understand how traditional communities' management of common pool resources can contribute to this discussion. More specifically, it highlights how these communities can offer lessons to governments on how to develop and manage environmental policies to ensure sustainable development. Whereas Ostrom's work focuses on investigating how local communities succeed at managing common pool resources without external interference, behavior analysis can explain how cultural practices are selected. Through this combined framework, we investigate the practices of an extractive reserve (RESEX) in Brazil. A RESEX is an area of land, generally state owned, where access and use rights, including natural resource extraction, are allocated to local groups. The RESEX Mãe Grande de Curuçá is an example of common pool resource management that uses governmental tools to benefit the community. Fisherfolks are able to successfully conserve one of their main sources of livelihood: the fiddler crab. Finally, this paper describes and behavioral interactions regarding the conservation of resources that governments may want to consider.
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