Crisis-induced disruptions in place-based social-ecological research ‐ an opportunity for redirection

Abstract

Place-based research faces multiple threats, including both natural and global health hazards and political conflicts, which may disrupt fieldwork. The current COVID-19 pandemic shows how these threats can drastically affect social-ecological research activities given its engagement with different local stakeholders, disciplines, and knowledge systems. The crisis reveals the need for adaptive research designs while also providing an opportunity for a structural shift towards a more sustainable and inclusive research landscape.

Pastoralists under COVID-19 lockdown

“…Through this 'messy' process, we have strived for more inclusive and equal research partnerships-horizontal-collaborative rather than vertical-hierarchical ones. This has taught us all, from our diverse walks of life, valuable lessons and skills, preparing us to adapt our research to future crises, as Hermans et al (2021) suggest.…”

“…With stringent travel restrictions in 2020, investigating the encounter of (agro)pastoralists with SARS-CoV-2 had to rely on remote ethnography (Postill 2016), which, in the wake of the pandemic, has become the new normal in social scientifc research (Hermans et al 2021).…”

“…From humble beginnings in the early stages of the pandemic, this project has developed organically and adaptively, without an imposed hierarchy, nor claims of methodological or disciplinary supremacy-following instead multiple, evolving relationships and exchanges among academics and mostly non-academic dryland residents. Best described as rhizome-shaped research (see Clarke and Parsons 2013), this approach embraces inter-and transdisciplinarity, collaboration, fexibility, open-endedness, and surprise (Clarke and Parsons 2013; see also Hermans et al 2021). Beyond helping to overcome travel restrictions, it is also best suited to examining relentlessly surprising virus-human interactions (Stephen et al 2015).…”

A future agenda for research on climate change and human mobility

“…Accordingly, gaps concerning differentiated data could be considered as predominantly technical in nature and so could be overcome through investment and capacity development. For instance, the creation and better exploitation of regional knowledge platforms would facilitate the comparison between countries, localities and regions, while the experience of COVID-19 has shown the potential for remote fieldwork, and so the possibility of overcoming geographical barriers (Hermans et al, 2021).…”