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6 - Making Sense of the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2018

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Summary

Like other indigenous peoples, the Trios constantly track changes in their surrounding environment by making comparisons between historic and present events (Byg and Salick 2009). This attests to the specific nature of indigenous peoples’ observations in space and time, and to their evaluation of deviations from normal over time, even discerning between a few “odd” and more long- term trends. Groups like the Trios are the first to observe and experience changes occurring in the forest, which they seem to interpret as both local and global phenomena. Most Trios have never heard of the term “climate change,” let alone what it entails. Climate change comes across as a mental construct created by the developed world.

The Trios understand climate change at the level that the forest presents risk to their livelihood. The risk system is based on an assessment— they constantly walk in the vicinity of their village to assess the forest, and use their senses of sight, taste, sound and touch to compare and contrast situations from the past with current phenomena. After thorough assessment, the Trios create an image of risk that is directly linked to the way that they see the world. Subsequently, they make a decision on how to act, based on the levels that they define as acceptable (Weber 2006).

Such images of reality are known to play a fundamental role in the assessment of risk and subsequent behavior, and define the organizing concept through which the tribe views local climate- related changes. For a researcher like me who seeks to understand the Trio view of climate change, information must be collected for describing the present- day reality in which the Trios live, the so- called map of the present. This information becomes relevant for the VIEW framework by answering five relevant questions: 1) What is real? 2) How is the “real” organized? 3) How do we know what is “real”? 4) What is valuable or important? and 5) How should we act? (Nudler 1993). When these exploratory questions are answered, I can draw a complete picture of how the Trios interpret and create meaning of climate change.

Type
Chapter
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Conflict and Sustainability in a Changing Environment
Through the Eyes of Communities
, pp. 109 - 134
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2017

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