Contributions to climate action : 14 years of adaptation research at IDRC

This report presents key contributions of IDRC to climate action over the past 14 years, highlighting implications for future programming and for the research community at large. IDRC’s support for research on climate change adaptation has increasingly focused on three major themes: 1) Influencing policy and practice 2) Ensuring impact at scale, and 3) Integrating gender and social equity considerations. The report recognizes four key lessons: the importance of direct research investment in the Global South; the need to move beyond seeing gender as a vulnerability; the value in recognizing multiple dimensions of social inequity; and the critical need for capacity building to develop climate leaders

'Being in Being': Contesting the Ontopolitics of Indigeneity Today

This article critiques the shift towards valorizing indigeneity in western thought and contemporary practice. This shift in approach to indigenous ways of knowing and being, historically derided under conditions of colonialism, is a reflection of the ‘ontological turn’ in anthropology. Rather than indigenous peoples simply having an inferior or different understanding of the world to a modernist one, the ‘ontological turn’ suggests their importance is that they constitute different worlds, and that they ‘world’ in a performatively different way. The radical promise is that a different world already exists in potentia and that access to this alternative world is a question of ontology - of being differently: being in being rather than thinking, acting and ‘worlding’ as if we were transcendent or ‘possessive’ subjects. We argue that ontopolitical arguments for the superiority of indigenous ways of being should not be seen as radical or emancipatory resistances to modernist or colonial epistemological and ontological legacies but instead as a new form of neoliberal governmentality, cynically manipulating critical, postcolonial and ecological sensibilities for its own ends. Rather than ‘provincialising’ dominant western hegemonic practices, discourses of ‘indigeneity’ are functioning to extend them, instituting new forms of governing through calls for adaptation and resilience

Presenting unity, performing diversity: Sto:lo identity negotiations in venues of cultural representation

In the process of negotiating land claims, First Nations in British Columbia and Canada face the challenging task of presenting a unified identity without trampling on the inevitable diversity within their communities. This thesis explores the perceived conflict between unity and diversity amongst Native populations. It brings together fieldwork in Stó:lō territory in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, performance theory, and contemporary discourse surrounding identity production at this particular point in time. The work examines performance of identity as a form of social action and the variability of identity performances. Data was gathered from interviews with people involved with two sites where educational programmes are being developed for local students: Xa:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Centre at Hatzic Rock, near Mission, and Longhouse Extension Programme/ Shxwt'a:selhawtxw on St6:l o Nation grounds in Chilliwack. The theme explored in this thesis is that just as unity is politically expedient, diversity and its management is an important facet of the performance of identity.Arts, Faculty ofAnthropology, Department ofGraduat

Water, Cultural Diversity, and Global Environmental ChangeEmerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? /

XLVIII, 560 p. 195 illus., 138 illus. in color.on

Tourisme et « éco-ethnicité » : les enjeux d’un soft power environnemental pour les minorités de l’Asie d’altitude (Chine, Laos, Népal)

International audienceCet article teste l'hypothèse suivante : la double image identitaire ethnique et environnementale d'un groupe – que nous appelons éco-ethnicité – peut expliquer dans une large mesure son émancipation ; ainsi, le fait d'être doté d'une éco-ethnicité significative pourrait fournir à ce groupe un soft power substantiel tiré du tourisme. Le texte s'appuie sur une recherche qualitative de terrain comparant trois études de cas en altitude au Népal (Annapurna), en Chine (Guizhou) et au Laos (Louang Namtha). La mise en tourisme locale y souligne l'ethnicité et les connaissances environnementales locales, mais à des degrés très divers. En conclusion, l’éco-ethnicité n’apparait pas comme un facteur d’émancipation économique déterminant

Can Landscape Empower Rural “Minorities” Through Tourism? Eco-Ethnicity in the Highlands of India, Nepal, China, Laos and Vietnam

Why is rural tourism growing in some “marginal” Asian highlands but not in others? Why, in the regions with growing rural tourism, are “local people” impacted in different ways? Based on qualitative fieldwork research, this paper addresses these issues through a comparison of five highland case studies in India (Kumaon), Nepal (Annapurna), China (Guizhou), Vietnam (Lam Dong) and Laos (Luang Namtha). It tests the following hypothesis among others: What we call eco-ethnicity – the dual visibility of ethnic and environmental identity of a group – explains to a large extent the empowerment of local groups. Being endowed with a significant eco-ethnicity can provide substantial soft power to a group