I organized a panel titled, “Positionality, gender & fieldwork: considerations & advice from female researchers" at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the AAG. The room was packed and the discussions started by the panelists and Q&A reverberated throughout the conference. Interested attendees and the panelists, myself included, created an informal forum to continue our exchange of experiences, support and advice. The session also inspired one attendee, a graduate student at McGill University, to start an annual roundtable on positionality, gender and safety in the field. This roundtable and the informal forum are material results of my efforts to expand actionable knowledge and strategies to improve safety and effectiveness for women conducting sole-field work. My name is Lauren Wustenberg and I am a third-year Master’s student in the Department of Geography at McGill University. I’m writing to you because you [organized] the 2016 AAG session on “Positionality, gender & fieldwork: considerations & advice from female graduate students.” While I was unfortunately unable to attend that event due to a conflicting session, a colleague of mine in my department was able to attend your session. She brought the lessons from that conversation and the resources you all discussed to our campus where we have started holding an annual roundtable discussion on positionality, gender and safety in fieldwork in an attempt to help guide graduate students as they prepare for their fieldwork seasons. As a result, Lauren Wustenberg and I will be co-organizing a follow up panel to the 2016 session at the upcoming 2018 AAG meeting in New Orleans. We have extended the first session's goals and look forward to the outcomes in 2018. Abstract AAG 2018, New Orleans
This panel brings together female geographers who conduct fieldwork across Asia, South America, Africa, and the Northern Canada employing a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. This panel continues a discussion started in 2016 on the production of geographic knowledge through international fieldwork as a solo female researcher. Topics of discussion will include, but are not limited to: safety considerations in fieldwork, power-dynamics between researcher and field assistants, interpersonal relations in the field, precautions and preparation, and understanding but not bending to cultural gender biases. Additionally, the panel will explore ways in which gender and power can/should be accounted for in fieldwork; this includes questions of positionality and personal, cultural conditions in the field that may influence research goals. Overall, the purpose of this panel is to reflect on some of the issues that are faced by female researchers conducting international fieldwork, and support female graduate students exchanging ideas on preparation, in-field strategies, and general advice. The conversation is meant to be inclusive of diverse field experiences, institutional backgrounds, and levels of expertise in conducting international fieldwork. The conversation hosted in this session should help participants identify resources, cultivate ideas on how to advocate for safety and preparedness of graduate students in their institutions who intend to conduct fieldwork, and will provide a lens through which universities, graduate programs, and graduate supervisors can be examined for the role they play in preparing female researchers for the experiences and risks they face during fieldwork. Biologist, Crystal Crown, and I were continually finding our discussions lead to the portrayal of leopards in Indian national and local media. She and I are both interested in human-wildlife conflict and investigating acute issues from unique analysis. We decided to understand the media portrayal of human-leopard interactions we needed to do large scale media analysis of both Indian news and international outlets. This research is now available in the journal Conservation & Society. Abstract: Interactions between humans and wildlife are frequent in India, requiring stakeholders to devise mitigation strategies that benefit both humans and wildlife. Success of such initiatives can be impacted by stakeholders' perceptions of species and related issues, which may be unduly influenced by the media. This paper explores media representation of Human-Leopard Interactions (HLI) in India, focusing on detecting agenda-setting and framing in articles, and whether these differ with the level of association with HLI. To accomplish this, we coded articles (n=291) from three media-distribution levels with increasing detachment to HLI events: local news, Indian national news, and international news, and compared the types of agenda-setting and framing found across the three. Overall, international media had the most negative portrayal of leopards and HLI, while national had the most balanced. Local and international media included 'man-eater' framing in the majority of their stories; whereas stories of leopards as victims were most prominent in local news, and victim framing was most frequent in national. These results suggest that agenda-setting and framing may vary with association with HLI. Despite differences between sources, our findings suggest that all media distributions focused primarily on stories of leopards causing trouble (e.g., attacks and incursions), or in ways viewed as troublesome (e.g. incursions) with few stories of leopards as victims or informational pieces. The largely negative depiction, and differences in representation between geographic locations, could hinder mitigation strategies and policy through presenting stakeholders with incomplete information. Source: K.F. Doubleday. 2017. ‘Man-eaters’ in the Media: Representation of Human-leopard Interactions in India Across Local, National, and International Media. Conservation & Society 15(3): 304-312. (Link) Photo : Conflict Leopard in Maharashtra, India; K.F. Doubleday 2014.
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