Participatory Ethnography & Mapping
Participatory Ethnography & Focus Groups
Our participatory ethnography engages women and youth to conduct needs assessment to determine the most pressing concerns relating to climate change adaptation and resource management. Our communal focus group discussions will be spaces where individuals freely express specific needs and visions around land & watershed management and stewardship of the local environment to discuss:
- Which village resources (water, land, fodder, food, fuel) are most threatened by climate change?
- What skills are most needed so that women and youth can address food security & labor shortages?
- What skills do women and youth need most urgently to access and steward natural resources?
- What adaptive solutions are already in place that can be shared or strengthened?
Participatory mapping
Focus groups will map and describe customary rules for all communally managed environmental resources such as streams, irrigation channels, reservoirs, snowfields, pasture land, fields, tree plantations, and so forth. These will be used to generate an integrated landscape management plan for each village and make recommendations for climate smart policies that serve the most vulnerable groups in Zangskar.
For millennia, Zangskarpa have resources sustainably and collaboratively. The rock art seen below can be to 100-500 CE (stupa images) and 1000-3000 BCE (ibex carvings).
