Jamie Shinn

The ability of people to respond successfully to environmental variability is determined by their existing vulnerabilities and social‐ecological relationships. At the same time, dominant policy and scholarly approaches to adaptation remain apolitical and pay inadequate attention to the links between structural vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Using a case study from the dynamic wetland environment of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, this paper draws on work in political ecology, vulnerability studies, and the emerging field of transformative adaptation to emphasise the need for an anticipatory approach to adaptation. While flooding variability is an inherent part of life in the Okavango Delta, high floods in 2009, 2010 and 2011 displaced hundreds of residents from their homes and inundated many floodplain agricultural fields past the point of production. A combination of household interviews, participant observation sessions, and household surveys was used to investigate the impact...

Recent debates about the state of geography raise valuable questions about how the discipline can and should change in response to shifting institutional realities. Focusing on the breadth and interdisciplinarity of geography, these discussions often overlook the role of pedagogy—particularly graduate training—in adapting the discipline to new institutional landscapes. Drawing on experiences as current and recent geography doctoral students, we identify institutional seedlings of opportunity that can be cultivated toward a spectrum of alternative doctoral training models. These alternatives offer significant opportunities to better prepare early-career geographers for success and to solidify geography's position as a leader in interdisciplinary research.

In this article, two white, Western female researchers reflect on the methodological, ethical, and practical dilemmas experienced while conducting social science fieldwork in Botswana for their doctoral degrees. In addition, their shared research assistant examines her role as a social and cultural interlocutor, which was essential to the researchers’ successful navigation in their various field sites. Drawing on distinct but common experiences conducting research in northern and western regions of rural Botswana, the authors reflexively consider a series of interwoven issues tied to their positionalities: the disparity in benefits and return on research investment between the researcher and research participants; the nature of commodified or transactional relations, especially in an impoverished region highly dependent on foreign tourists; the complex nature of researcher–research assistant relationships; and the contradictory dynamics of being female researchers in a patriarchal s...

The hydrosocial (HS) and social-hydro (SH) frameworks each attempt to understand the complexity of water and society, but they have emerged from historically disparate fields with distinctly different goals as well as methodological and epistemological standpoints. This paper encapsulates the shared experiences of two human geographers and two hydrologists studying hazard and vulnerability in two communities impacted by extreme flooding in West Virginia in 2016. We add to the limited examples of scientists working across epistemologies to improve the understanding of water-societal relations. In so doing, we also contribute to broader discussions of water justice. We outline an experimental approach connecting hydrosocial and social-hydro frameworks to study flood hazard and vulnerability. Within our conceptualization, we set forth that while social and hydrological factors can be presented as purely anthropogenic or geophysical, respectively, their intersection is the crux to inves...

Household water insecurity has serious implications for the health, livelihoods and wellbeing of people around the world. Existing methods to assess the state of household water insecurity focus largely on water quality, quantity or adequacy, source or reliability, and affordability. These methods have significant advantages in terms of their simplicity and comparability, but are widely recognized to oversimplify and underestimate the global burden of household water insecurity. In contrast, a broader definition of household water insecurity should include entitlements and human capabilities, sociocultural dynamics, and political institutions and processes. This paper proposes a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods that can be widely adopted across cultural, geographic, and demographic contexts to assess hard-to-measure dimensions of household water insecurity. In doing so, it critically evaluates existing methods for assessing household water insecurity and suggests ways in ...

The ability of people to respond successfully to environmental variability is determined by their existing vulnerabilities and social-ecological relationships. At the same time, dominant policy and scholarly approaches to adaptation remain apolitical and pay inadequate attention to the links between structural vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Using a case study from the dynamic wetland environment of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, this paper draws on work in political ecology, vulnerability studies, and the emerging field of transformative adaptation to emphasise the need for an anticipatory approach to adaptation. While flooding variability is an inherent part of life in the Okavango Delta, high floods in 2009, 2010 and 2011 displaced hundreds of residents from their homes and inundated many floodplain agricultural fields past the point of production. A combination of household interviews, participant observation sessions, and household surveys was used to investigate the impacts of these flooding events, responses to them, and the implications of those responses. Findings reveal that the Government of Botswana began to regulate wetland-based livelihoods more strictly during the years the high floods occurred, and to encourage residents to switch permanently to dryland livelihoods. While these state-sponsored strategies appear to be practical responses to flooding variability, they ultimately result in decreased adaptive capacity for some people, especially members of the Bayei tribe. This group typically subsists from wetland-based livelihoods and has strong cultural ties to the waters of the Delta. By situating these findings within the historical context of marginalisation of ethnic minorities and rural communities in the country, and considering them in the light of predictions of future increases in environmental variability in the Okavango Delta, the paper identifies sites of potential transformation that would lead to improved adaptive capacities for vulnerable groups, in advance of the most significant impacts of climate change.

Adaptive management and related fields have theorized new governance strategies that embrace complexity and are able to respond effectively to changing and unpredictable biophysical dynamics. However, this body of work pays inadequate attention to important on-the-ground realities, including feasibility of implementation and the power dynamics embedded in multi-scalar systems of environmental governance. This paper presents findings from a research project on challenges to adaptive management in the variable wetland ecosystem of the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Many residents of this rural region rely on transitional agricultural practices, shifting between dryland and floodplain farming in response to dynamic precipitation and flooding patterns. Higher than average floods in 2009–2011 inundated many floodplain fields past the point of production, causing farmers to shift to the dryland for multiplem seasons. At the same time, the highly centralized Government of Botswana began to implement stricter regulations over floodplain resources, which stemmed in part from a new adaptive management plan developed for the region. As a result, many farmers felt pressured by the government to abandon transitional livelihood practices and to shift permanently to dryland agriculture even though many preferred to continue floodplain farming. This loss of a responsive livelihood strategy will likely result in decreased long-term adaptive capacity for many residents. Drawing on these findings, this paper advances the argument that if adaptive management is to become a viable option for communities in changing environments, more attention must be given to the role of unequal power relations in multi-scalar systems of environmental governance.

Increasing environmental variability associated with global climate change is expected to produce social instability and human displacement in future decades. As such, there remains a pressing need to understand the implications of environmental changes for human populations and their adaptive capacities. This paper analyzes governmental and intra-community responses to environmental variability through a case study from the Okavango Delta, Botswana. We report findings from fieldwork conducted during May–June 2011 and October 2012–May 2013 in the village of Etsha 13. Following an increase in annual flooding in 2009, 2010, and 2011, the Government of Botswana permanently relocated hundreds of residents to a nearby dryland area, asserting that this new settlement was necessary to reduce future risks from flooding variability. While some residents accepted this position, others elected to return to the floodplain or to illegally divert the flow of the water to protect their homes. This paper explores the micro-politics of these relocation efforts and competing responses in order to examine differential adaptive
responses to increased flooding levels. We situate these findings within the burgeoning literature on transformative adaptation and suggest that micro-political dynamics are critical in shaping the limitations to, and possibilities for, effective adaptive responses to global environmental change.

Current and future impacts of climate change include increasing variability in a number of biophysical processes, such as temperature, precipitation, and flooding. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has suggested that Southern Africa is particularly vulnerable to the anticipated impacts from global climate change and that social and ecological systems in the region will be disrupted and likely transformed in future decades. This article engages with current research within geography and cognate disciplines on the possibilities for responsive livelihoods within socio-ecological systems experiencing biophysical change. The paper draws from an ongoing research project that is evaluating perceptions of environmental change, specifically of precipitation and flooding dynamics, in order to understand social responses. We report on the findings from qualitative interviewing conducted in 2010 and 2011 in the communities of Etsha 1, Etsha 6, and Etsha 13 within the Okavango Delta of Botswana. While flooding and precipitation patterns have been dynamic and spatially differentiated, some livelihood systems have proven rigid in their capacity to enable adaptive responses. We assert this demonstrates the need for detailed research on livelihood dynamics to support adjustments to biophysical variability within socio-ecological systems experiencing change.