Resources Pile Sort

Background

Our aim in this component of the research is to record and discuss people's varied interactions with different types of resources. These "interactions" can include production, exchange, and use / consumption of the resource. We want to discuss and observe questions related to adaptability and risk--both during the recordings and with others, collectively, through the medium of ethnographic video. The areas we are interested in:

• Technical knowledge
• Social resources
• Natural resources
• Economic decisions
• Relationship of activities to social and political structures

Overall, we want to compare the experiences of very different herders, to see how those different experiences might be taken into account in governance--including international development projects--in ways that improve adaptive capacity, reduce economic and environmental risk, and increase social-ecological resilience. We want to investigate the sorts of actions that individuals take--as herders, producers, consumers, officials, or others--and how they impact on others. We want to think not just about "rangeland resources" or "policy", but about how individuals experience those differently.

Prior to video recordings, as part of the planning process, we want to create a general map of interactions with resources at the household level.

Resource inventory

See:

• AcMn/PastoralResources/resources.csv, which corresponds to AcMn/PastoralResourceInventory.

• AcMn/PastoralResourceUses - Focus on categories of input resources and corresponding actions. Note that we probably need to add some more actions that are related to the production of equipment, etc. (e.g., cho'dor) and to sacred uses of the natural-cultural landscape.

The inventory includes following types of material resources.

We will use this list of resources as the basis for a pile sort activity. Set as a sentence frame, we would be asking:

• Do you (use|produce|sell|gift) __________? (Did your parents?)

• What types of __________ do you use?

We already have enough knowledge of the commonly available resources to make a general inventory. But the detailed discussion should come during the video recordings. For example: when gathering wood, we can discuss what different types of wood someone gathers, and for what purpose, and at what times of the year. For now, we simply want to know whether or not they gather wood.

These resources need to be reasonably broad categories, but it is necessary to be as exhaustive as possible in relation to the level of specificity needed for the study. For example, in terms of vegetation we might want to look at all the major plant types (saxaul, etc.), whereas in terms of rocks and stones the geological type is not so important. In essence I need to make some preliminary decisions about which resources are most likely to be significant in terms of adaptive capacity--specifically considering the level at which adaptation-enabling diversity is likely to occur, in other words, considering properties that have an impact on the types of actions available.

This can serve in helping us to create a preliminary sort of inventory (survey): who uses what, where? The rest (i.e., video recordings) will be "sampling".

Sorting activity instructions

We have prepared a series of cards, each of which identifies a physical resource. Some of these resources are natural, while others are things that you might make or buy.

We would like to go through this set of resources and sort them to discuss (1) which resources you use, and (2) how you use them.

1. Go through the cards one by one, sorting them into two groups--first, resources the people in your household use (or sell), even if only rarely; and second, those you never use. Put the cards for resources you use into a pile on the left, and the cards for the resources you don't use on the right. In the pile for resources you use, include rangeland resources consumed by livestock where applicable.
2. Go through the pile of "use" cards and list all the different ways you use each resource. Try to be as comprehensive as possible. (Prompts: Do you use this for making anything else? Do you sell or give it to anyone? What else do you use it with?)

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