Developing sustainability, developing the self : an integral approach to international and community development

Spanish version available in IDRC Digital Library: Desarrollando la sustentabilidad, desarrollando el ser : un enfoque integral al desarrollo internacional y comunitari

Exploring community resilience and human development in the context of climate change adaptation in El Salvador and Canada

The project resulted in improved local understanding and capacity of communities regarding climate change, adaptation, and its impacts, with local researchers engaging in learning exchanges in Panama, Canada, and parts of El Salvador, to share research methodology and findings. Two communities of local environmental committees emerged during the project through which the adaptation process will be further developed. Through “photovoice” the project connected with local people’s perspectives, understanding, and daily experiences. Photovoice is a qualitative method used for community-based participatory research to document and reflect local realities

Desarrollando la sustentabilidad, desarrollando el ser : un enfoque integral al desarrollo internacional y comunitario

Versión en inglés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Developing sustainability, developing the self : an integral approach to international and community developmen

Developing capacity and community well-being : action research on an integral capacity development approach in the Mapacho River Watershed, Peru

The project conducted participatory action research with project partners to identity what kinds of methodologies could capture subjective, inter-subjective and objective evidence for monitoring and evaluating capacity development. Three workshops with partner organizations in Peru were carried out regarding criteria and indicators, towards designing an assessment and evaluation plan for the Mapacho River Watershed project. The report covers activities and outcomes of the process, as well as discussion of designs for some assessment tools

Climate action in urban mobility: personal and political transformations

Although many municipalities have climate action plans with targets and goals, effective climate action still faces significant implementation gaps. Implementation can falter due to barriers for the deployment of low-carbon solutions, as well as the lack of 'cultural, systemic, and psychological support' for such solutions. Cultural drivers and perceptions shape citizens’ behaviors and can perpetuate carbon-intensive lifestyles. This paper focuses on measures in climate action planning in the Metro Vancouver region of Canada regarding transportation, which remains the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions and has a low chance of reaching its emissions-reductions targets. Shifting towards greater sustainability will entail a challenge of transformative change, involving shifts in systems, behaviors, worldviews, and cultures. In implementation, the full complexity of the climate action challenge becomes most evident. A scoping review of climate action documentation and semi-structured interviews are used to examine (1) barriers to effective implementation, (2) socio-cultural perceptions and approaches to public engagement and (3) novel areas for transformational action. The study found a need to reweight the focus of climate action, which is predominantly set on techno-managerial efforts, also to include communication, narratives and broader systems change, which are the key barriers to low-carbon urban mobility.   'Practice relevance' Transportation remains a significant source of greenhouse gases and air pollutants in urban areas. To effectively shrink emissions, novel approaches are needed that go beyond technical fixes and view climate action as a challenge of transformative change. This study identifies the dominance of (1) 'practical', techno-managerial solutions, yet notes an inadequate focus brought to (2) the 'political' restructuring of systems and developmental trajectories pertaining to mobility and (3) thepersonal aspects of social perceptions and culture. Recommendations are made about how to better account for the deeper human dimensions that present persistent barriers to climate action in transportation by reweighting the focus to include the personal and political spheres of transformation

Finding shared meaning in the Anthropocene: engaging diverse perspectives on climate change

Abstract The scientific evidence of climate change has never been clearer and more convergent, and calls for transformations to sustainability have never been greater. Yet, perspectives and social opinions about it remain fractured, and collaborative action is faltering. Climate policy seeks to forge a singular sense of climate change, dominated by an ‘information deficit model’ that focuses on transferring climate science to the lay public. Critics argue that this leaves out certain perspectives, including the plurality of meanings uncovered through participatory approaches. However, questions remain about how these approaches can better account for nuances in the psychological complexity of climate change, without getting stuck in the cul-de-sacs of epistemological relativism and post-truth politics. In this paper, I explore an approach through which we might find shared meaning at the interface of individual and collective views about climate change. I first present a conceptual framework that describes five psychological reasons why climate change challenges individual and collective meaning-making, and also provides a way to understand how meaning is organized within that. I then use this framework to inform the use of photo voice as a transformative (action-research) method, examining its ability to overcome some of the meaning-making challenges specific to climate change. I discuss how participants from a coffee cooperative in Guatemala reflected first on their own climate meanings and then engaged in a meaning-making process with other actors in the coffee value chain. Findings suggest a psychosocial approach to climate engagement—one that engages both subjectively and intersubjectively on the complexities unique to climate change—is helpful in acknowledging an ontological pluralism of ‘climate changes ’ amongst individuals, while also supporting a nexus-agreement collectively. This may in turn contribute to a more effective and ethical process of transformation

Desarrollo comunitario integral en El Salvador de la posguerra : Centro Bartolomé de las Casas

Versión en inglés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Integral community development in post-war El Salvador : Centro Bartolomé de las Casa

A Matter of Meaning: Integrating the Deeper Human Dimensions of Climate Change Adaptation to Support Transformations to Sustainability in a Global Coffee Value Chain

This thesis presents transdisciplinary research in climate change adaptation in Guatemalan coffee-producing communities, within the larger calls for transformation to sustainability. Through action research with actors in a global coffee value chain, the study seeks to understand why people make-meaning of climate change as they do, as well as how shared meaning and greater collaboration can be found within multi-actor groups. Attention is paid to human ‘interiority’ and processes of meaning-making as well as how these psychological and social aspects might be integrated in a more integral, transdisciplinary approach to adaptation. Findings include how a global coffee value chain is adapting and responding to the climate challenge, and how its innovations might be scaled. Additional insights are also provided regarding responses to COVID-19 pandemic compared to that of climate change, considering the significance of an integral approach to unprecedented, complex issues. The thesis is comprised of five articles which, taken together, consider how climate change adaptation can be engaged as transformative change

Integral community development in post-war El Salvador : Centro Bartolomé de las Casas

Spanish version available in IDRC Digital Library: Desarrollo comunitario integral en El Salvador de la posguerra : Centro Bartolomé de las CasasThis case study explores the unique response that CBC offers the Salvadoran people. It is unique for a number of reasons, which I discuss further below; some of which include: 1) The approach is open to integrate disciplines, and to bring together opposing groups into dialogue, so to explore differences and find unity. 2) The approach uses innovative methodologies to integrate interiority into all programming, working with faith, subjectivity, self-identity, trauma, and personal power. 3) This focus on interiority is integrated with the concurrent work with exterior systems, such as local economic needs, gender equality, and community development. 4) The work facilitates self-development, and healthy at several levels of the spectrum of human psychology, as a key part of community wellbeing and as part of their own personal work as development practitioners