Mya Sherman was in Montreal this week, and will be in Guelph next week to conduct interviews with IHACC researchers and students in the context of the Evaluating Indigenous Vulnerability and Adaptation Research (EIVAR) project, which aims to characterize the role of research in climate change adaptation in diverse indigenous communities. Mya has developed a monitoring and evaluation framework for community-based adaptation research and is applying this framework to the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) research program as a case study. After the current round of interviews in Montreal and Guelph, she will be conducting extensive fieldwork from April – September 2015 with the indigenous communities in IHACC’s three regions, including the Canadian Arctic, Peruvian Amazon, and southwestern Uganda. Participatory qualitative methods –including semi-structured interviews, historical timelines, the most significant change method, the theory of change, and ranking exercises– will be carried out with the wide range of participants and stakeholders involved in the IHACC research program, including community members, researchers, government institutions and non-governmental organizations. This research will provide new insight into how different stakeholder groups perceive meaningful community-based adaptation research and the ways research can influence adaptation processes and outcomes in diverse indigenous settings. The project is lead by Mya Sherman, Lea Berrang-Ford, James Ford, Shuaib Lwasa, Alejandro Llanos, Sherilee Harper, Victoria Edge, and Thomas Marcello.
Mya Sherman in Montreal and Guelph to conduct interviews with IHACC researchers