Proposal:To Gwembe Research Team
Cynthia Veit
Human Connection and Adaption to the Environment in Gwembe
The University of California, Irvine
My interest in the Gwembe Project encompasses several hypotheses that
involve the methods of Ecological Anthropology and Geographical Information
Systems (GIS). The Gwembe study is an excellent opportunity to research
adaptation to environmental change over time. Dr. Thayer Scudder, Dr. Elizabeth
Colson and others have collected longitudinal and present data about the
fluctuating conditions and adaptions of the people of Gwembe area. My interest
is to continue the research that Scudder has begun on the ecology of area.
I want to focus on several theoretical interests regarding the Gwembe people
and their surrounding environment. My research interest overlaps areas
explored by Scudder and others in previous research. I hope to contribute
to the ongoing research by exploring ecological issues presented by Scudder
in earlier research papers. In addition to continuing the research Scudder
and others are doing, I am interested in other aspects of adaption that
extend and add another dimension to Scudder's work. How do the people of
Gwembe conceptualize environmental degradation? In Gwembe, land availability
is scarce due to high population density creating a high demanded for more
land as the population grows, as the population increases more and more
areas of forest will be used for agriculture. My interest is to collect
data using GIS satellite imagery and census data and correlating that data
with my own ethnographic research to examine the effects of land deterioration.
Does land deterioration effect the community's concepts of the future and
contribute to community unraveling? What happens to descendants hoping
to inherit land? How have younger generations coped with the decrease of
land availability? These questions also pose correlations (i.e., ecological/economic
processes) that require longitudinal research. This is a great potential
to study the processes of social change in connection with ecological adaptation.
Using GIS in the process of longitudinal assessment will give further quantitative
evidence that connects my empirical interest in the effects of ecological
deterioration with community and/or social unraveling.
Gwembe Tonga Research
Project (Sam Clark)