III. Lecture and discussion

Session 3: Saturday, October 2, Zoom (8:30am PDT, 11:30am EDT, 17:30 CEST, 23:30 ULAT, meeting for up to 80 minutes). 

Lecture and discussion. This session will discuss several different research projects related to the human impacts of climate change in Mongolia that have been carried out by individuals or teams of social scientists. Links and files for to some of the articles that I will reference in the lesson are below,  but the amount of reading you do is up to you–some of you will read everything, but others won’t find time for reading. If you can look at just one or two, I recommend that you look at (#3) Andrei Marin’s article and then view (#4) N. Tugjamba’s powerpoint. Also in this session, I will share details about the research process from my own personal experience, including strategies/methodology and lessons I have learned from carrying out fieldwork in rural Mongolia. Others with research experience who are interested in sharing their experiences or findings are encouraged to email me beforehand so that I can plan our time accordingly—your contributions are appreciated!

Slides from this week: ACMS Climate Course Session 2

1. Ainka Granderson on importance community-based climate change research: granderson.2014.soc.sci.climate.studies

2. Susie Crate on “storying” climate change: crate.2017.storying.climate.change

3. Andrei Marin on Herders’ Observations of Climate Change: 2010-Riders_under_Storms_Contributions_of_Nomadic_Herders_Observations_to_Analysing_Climate_Change_in_Mongolia

4. N. Tugjamba and Greg Walkerden’s powerpoint presentation on herders and climate change in Eastern Mongolia: Climate change impacts on nomadic livelihood: a case study from Northeastern Mongolia (ufl.edu)

5. Nadia Mijiddorj et al. on Gobi herders’ decision making for risk management and climate change: mijiddorj.et.al.2019.herders.decision.making

6. My (Annika’s) article on rural risk management and legacies of socialism: ericksen.2014.depend.on.each.other

7. Lkhagvadorj et al. on climate and herding in Western Mongolia: Lkhagvadorj.et.al.2013.eastern.altai.climate.herdLkhagvadorj.et.al.2013.western.altai.climate.herdersers

8. Ulambayar et al. on social outcomes of herders’ community-based rangeland management: The Society for Conservation Biology (wiley.com)

9. Dan Murphy on herders and the cashmere debt cycle: Murphy.2019.cashmere.debt.cycle

Additional Sources:

10. Craig Janes is a medical anthropologist with a focus on Mongolia, vulnerability in post-socialist times, and dzud disasters. He and his former PhD student, Oyuntsetseg Chuluundorj, have partnered on several articles and one book: Making Disasters: Climate Change, Neoliberal Governance, and Livelihood Insecurity on the Mongolian Steppe. Here is a pdf of the first two chapters: janes.and.chuluundorj.2015.making.disasters.preface.ch.1.and.2

11. Maria Fernandez-Gimenez is a Natural Resources / Rangeland Ecologist who has used a lot of social/cultural methods and analysis in her work in Mongolia, for example, learning Mongolian and living with herders while doing her PhD related to herders’ traditional ecological knowledge. She and colleagues have produced a lot of reports for agencies and NGOs as well as academic articles related to disaster and resilience in rural Mongolia. The report that I mentioned in class, “Lessons from the Dzud,” which she co-authored with B. Batbuyan and B. Batkhishig, is free to download online and conveniently in both English and Mongolian: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Lessons%20from%20the%20Dzud_Adaptation%20and%20Resilience%20in%20Mongolian%20Pastoral%20Social-Ecological%20Systems.pdf

12. David Sneath, a UK anthropologist, works in both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, and he is known for his deep knowledge of history in the region and his use of critical theory in analyzing current challenges. While the majority of his publications to date have not been on climate change, his current research has that focus, so stay tuned. Earlier work focused on land use changes in post-socialist Mongolia, e.g.: 2003-Land_Use_the_Environment_and_Development_in_Post-Socialist_Mongolia

13. Troy Sternberg, an American geographer based at Oxford U., has long focused on climate risk in the arid parts of Mongolia, e.g.: 2008-Environmental_Challenges_in_Mongolias_Dryland_Pastoral_Landscape