Update from the field: Kaitlyn Finner in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut (Labrador)

This week Masters student Kaitlyn Finner and community-based researchers Inez Shiwak and Lisa Palliser-Bennett are meeting with community members in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut to hear their perspectives on food inventories and photo card interviews that were conducted over the course of a year, from May 2013 to 2014. The participatory methods were adapted for the Rigolet based project and the research team is working to better understand how the methods can be further adapted for future food related research in Rigolet, and other communities that may be interested.

"It’s been a great week so far with lots of interviews and amazing weather, but the real highlight is set to take place this weekend when the 2015 Winter Sports Meet is held at Northern Lights Academy in Rigolet for school teams from along the Northern coast of Labrador!"

IHACC emerging results e-booklets now available for Uganda and Peru

The IHACC emerging results booklets that were prepared for the UNFCCC COP20 last November are now available to read online as e-booklets. Links to the Ugandan and Peruvian results dissemination e-booklets are provided below. The Arctic booklets will be made available on the IHACC website shortly.

Didacus presenting at the Geography in Action! Brown Bag Seminar Series at McGill on February 27th 2015

Didacus Namanya is presenting his PhD work today at the Geography in Action! Brown Bag Seminar Series, hosted by the Department of Geography at McGill University. His talk, entitled "Access to health care in the context of malaria among Uganda Batwa indigenous people: A geospatial analysis", will take place in Burnside Hall room 426 at noon. All are welcome.

Mya Sherman in Montreal and Guelph to conduct interviews with IHACC researchers

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.

Didacus Namanya at McGill University in January and February

IHACC Co-Investigator Didacus Namanya has been visiting the team at McGill University since mid-January, and will be staying until to the end of February. During his stay, Didas has been primarily focusing on developing the proposal for his Doctorate degree (Makerere University), with the support of Sierra, Kate and other IHACC members in the Health Geography Lab at McGill. He has also had the opportunity to contribute more substantially to the planning of the upcoming annual project meeting as a member of the Project Management Committee. It has been a great opportunity for members working from different institutions to interact and share methods, study designs and findings. We wish Didas the best of luck in his graduate studies at Makerere University.