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.
Dowries & Tigers: More than Physical Risk from Gendered Divisions of Labor in Human-Tiger Landscapes9/1/2017
This fall, I'll be joining an exciting line-up of speakers for the 2017-2018 Symposium on Gender, History, & Sexuality sponsored by the History Department at UT. This research has yet to be presented, so I look forward to the unique atmosphere of a two hour opportunity to share in-depth insights with a well informed but diverse audience. If you are on campus please join me: Fri, October 6, 2017 | GAR 1.102 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM Abstract:
Sariska Tiger Reserve, in Rajasthan, India primarily supports its large rural population by providing fodder for livestock. To acquire this natural resource, women are tasked with shepherding livestock into the reserve or going to collect it and bring it back to the livestock safely tied up at home. Women's disproportionate risk to encountering a tiger or leopard compared to their male family members falls well within established feminist political ecology findings of women's gender roles and risk. However, still, to be explored, are hidden social costs as a result of the gendered division of labor within a network of apex predators and economic dependence on the vegetation within tiger territories. Through 20 focus groups, this research explores those hidden costs. Specifically, I explore links between women’s bodily risk in providing for livestock, which fluctuates in accordance with large carnivore encounters that result in variation in livestock milk production. At the small scale this variation may result in domestic violence, or at a larger scale result in social stigma and shame at the inability to pay for dowries. These social, at-home and in-community costs are not part of the discussion on tiger reintroduction initiatives, yet may have enormous impacts on attitudes of those living alongside tigers, and thus overall conservation success. Nonlinear liminality: Human-animal relations on preserving the world’s most famous tigress Abstract: This paper explores the Rajasthan Forest Department’s feeding of an elderly tigress named Machli, and her consequent liminal status between a wild life and a captive life. Machli is regarded as the world’s most famous tiger as a result of her decade-long starring role in multiple documentaries broadcast to international audiences. Many people display a relational empathy towards Machli. This has resulted in a powerful ethic of care, materialized in the Forest Department’s realignment of resources to care for her in old age; specifically to keep her from an unbefitting end of starvation. Machli’s relationship to humans and other tigers contribute to scholarship that interrogates notions of “wildness,” “pristine nature,” and the social construction of the nature-society divide through the case of an individual animal’s celebrity and consequential human-animal relations. Most scholarship centers on species or a population in theorizing human-animal conservation relationships and within the distinct spaces of in or ex situ conservation sites. I argue that greater attention needs to be paid to the complex scalar entanglements of individual animals and how this impacts perceptions about conservation practices and wild nonhuman life more generally. This is particularly true as individual animal celebrity grows across a broad spectrum of wild, captive, and domestic spaces and projected or rejected domesticity. Machli’s case highlights and allows for theoretical intervention into changing normative human-wild animal relations across scales and species. Source: Kalli F. Doubleday. 2017. Nonlinear liminality: Human-animal relations on preserving the world’s most famous tigress. Geoforum 81: 32-44. Journal Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718517300295 Fig. 1. Machli with a clouded left eye in October 2015. Photograph by Anuradha Marwah.
As part of TCU's Human-Animal Relations (HARE) minor's Sponsored Events Series I'll be giving a public lecture on March 7th, 2017. The talk will explore Human-Wildlife Conflict based on my work as a wildlife rescuer in Rajasthan and on a research project (under review) considering human-leopard conflict in the media.
Free and open to the public: Sid Richardson Lecture Hall 1 Title: Geographies of Human-Wildlife Conflict: In the Home and in the Media Abstract: Human-wildlife conflicts happen every day across India, from the megacities to remote farms. This leaves conservation managers with the monumental task of finding ways to negotiate these conflicts that do not disadvantage either the humans or the animals. These efforts can be further complicated by how the general public in India perceives these conservation plans, perceptions which can be affected both by the media’s presentation of the conflict and by long-held myths about certain species. This talk will introduce you to the issue of human-wildlife conflicts in the home and in the media, across India and internationally, especially around the Bangel tiger. A few days after finals week I flew to Botswana to be part of UT-Austin Botswana Study Abroad & Field School led by Drs. Thoralf Meyer & Kelley Crews. I was working primarily as a Research Assistant to Dr. Crews but was also mentored by both on the inter-workings of running a field school and study abroad program. Being in the classroom teaching the subjects I care about was already one of the primary reasons for going back for a PhD. Now, after this in-depth teaching experience developing a study aboard, where informal daily teaching takes place at a level unattainable in the classroom, is a primary future goal. For instance, each night at dinner I sat with a different group of students and had extensive discussions with them on a myriad of topics I had either touched on while moderating student presentations, noted while giving a lecture, etc. Not looking up at the clock when having these discussions, or taking away from valuable/limited classroom lecture time, but instead going into detail, and allowing for back and forth discussion was a teaching opportunity hard to imagine in other situations than a faculty-led study abroad setting. It was an unparalleled experience in so many ways. Thank you to Thoralf & Kelley for the innumerable learning expediences this summer instilled. That said, the wildlife was spectacular of course! A few of my favorite photos below.1. Paper Presentation: 4/1/16 8:40AM Powell Room A, Hilton Hotel, 6th Floor
Session: Media, governmentality, and managing the 'more than human' environment Abstract (link) This year I am not presenting a paper from my dissertation work but a co-authored research project with Crystal Crown, a conservation biologist. The resulting paper is titled 'Representation of human-leopard conflict in India across local, national, and international media' and was submitted to a peer-review journal last Nonmember. The issue of media representation as it relates to human-wildlife conflict is one that we've seen gaining traction, though few papers have thoroughly quantified any aspect of it (notable exceptions Bara 2010 & Bhatia et al. 2013). Human-leopard conflict is specifically of concern; Dr. Ullas Karanth (India’s leading tiger conservation scientist) has spoken out about the increasing issue in the Indian Express. Our research has uncovered several pertinent relationships between the three media distribution levels (local, national & international) of analysis and article framing/information that could be useful for informing wildlife managers of how knowledge of HWC is deficient in different locations, and consequently, what steps to take to fix these biases. Which could be particularly useful at the local level, where improved conflict reporting could be integrated into mitigation strategies. 2. Chairing & Organizing several sessions. Batteries, boots & blunders: Field work considerations & advice for graduate students Session Description: Geographic imaginations transport graduate students to their field sites before ever physically arriving. Yet, during graduate students' first international fieldwork seasons, the landscapes encountered and experiences gained are rarely comparable to those anticipated. Conducting empirical fieldwork provides valuable knowledge, in multiple forms, and presents unique opportunities and challenges, particularly when conducting international fieldwork for the first time. This panel is comprised of graduate students who have undertaken their first independent international fieldwork, using a variety of methods. The panelists will highlight lessons learned, emphasizing issues that are regularly faced by graduate students on first field expeditions, including planning strategies, in-field advice, and best practices. This panel aims to provide graduate students preparing to undertake first-time international fieldwork (as well as potential graduate students) with truthful and encouraging information to be prepared and to assess and plan their own itineraries and field work strategies. (link) Positionality, gender & fieldwork: considerations & advice from female graduate students Session Description: This panel brings together four female PhD Candidates, and one recent graduate, in geography working across Brazil, Peru, the Mediterranean, US-Mexico border and India employing a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. The panel will share and discuss the production of geographic knowledge through international fieldwork as a solo female researcher. Topics of discussion will include but are not limited to: power-dynamics between researcher and field assistants, interpersonal relations in the field, safety and precautions, 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 include 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 graduate students conducting international fieldwork, and exchange ideas on preparation, in-field strategies, and general advice. (link) Graduate Student Associations: Leadership, Purpose & Improvement Session Description: Moving out of the undergraduate student mentality and into the world of graduate research, publishing, grading, and teaching is a drastic change for most. Part of easing that transition, is or should be the support and insight from other graduate students. Departmental graduate associations are employed to fill this role to varying degrees. This panel brings together presidents of current geography graduate student associations to discuss 1) how their roles and their associations bridge the gap between graduate students and important professional development information, 2) discuss obstacles and strengths of peer guidance through graduate school, and 3) start an open dialogue among panelists and session attendees on ways to better serve each other through peer-to-peer leadership and valuable experience in the form of departmental graduate associations. Through these topics and discussions, this panel aims to encourage development and new initiatives within departments across geography. (link) Julie Urbanik & Connie Johnston's edited volume 'Humans & Animals: A Geography of Coexistence' is due for release this October. The volume offers critical examinations of human animal relationships in the context of animal geography through alphabetical listings of salient human-animal issues including invasive species, factory farming, human wildlife conflict, service animals and poaching. Look out for my sections on Flagship Species, Indicator Species, & Keystone Species!
American Association of Geographers (AAG) annual meeting (I've only missed one in nine years) is just around the corner. I'm always excited about the meeting but this year is especially important to me as I am joining the ranks of 'animal geographers' in several tangible ways (rather than just organizing sessions that are sponsored by the specialty group). First, I am looking forward to joining the Animal Geography Specialty Group (ANGSG) Board as the new Graduate Student Officer for the next two years. This is an amazing opportunity to help invest in the awareness of Animal Geographies across and outside our discipline, as well as, get to know other like minded scholars. Second, I am honored to have won this years ANGSG's Graduate Student Paper Award centered on the end of life care of Machli, the world's most famous tiger (abstract below). Click either photo to read the entire 2015 ANGSG Newsletter.
Tickets are booked, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet - I'm headed to Botswana for six weeks this summer. How and why, you ask? I have to share a life lesson to explain. |