Reply To: September 8th: History, Conservation and politics, the example of Australia

Libby Robin
Seminar and lecture 2014-09-08
Libby Robin is a breath of fresh air and inspiring to listen to! Her passion for her work really gets through. I admire her for taking notes on our names and the different thesis subjects in the group, making a comment if something important for ones thesis, came up in the discussion.

In this task I am inspired by Kristina and Morags question about our own thesis work.

Libby Robin made one comment to me, during the seminar, regarding my thesis; doing a very local, micro study I should also have communication with other levels. Put in other words I should connect my findings to processes in “the world” and not only isolate the subject in my thesis from other places, processes and levels, if I understood Robin right. This was a thought that came to my mind already on the session we had with Alf Hornborg. Hornborg talked about displacement of environmental issues and how it exists where it does in relation or direct connection to something else.
How is this done more precisely in my thesis then? Climate chocks or sudden change in climate condition over a few years, are not isolated happenings, nor in space, nor in time. It has happened before the 1860s in Hanebo parish and after and in other places also at the same time. People, “nature” and communities has been affected and responded differently to climate chocks depending on different factors such as social status, health and health care, land, trading condition, geographical isolation, gender, habits, believes, social connections, kinship etc. I can traces down clear connection in time and space to make my study more relevant and interesting in a greater context.

The next question I told my selves after Libby Robins seminar, is if I am going to have any crucial or deal breaking concepts in my thesis that I ought to know “the context of knowledge” about”? Such as “biodiversity” that Robin has studied. “Biodiversity” a concept I had not thought of before and problematized upon as a political tool as anything else. Maybe I need to think about the concept of “climate chock” in my own work, and take a step back from it and look at it? Because nowadays with the climate change crisis (another concept Libby talked about) I have to be careful to not be blunt about distinctions and also not to let the contemporary climate debate affect me in my work. The same goes for “social crisis” as a concept in relation to climate chocks.
Robin mentioned “sense of place” and analyzed a bit over “center” and “periphery” in the seminar. This can be something worth looking into and think about for me during the work process with my thesis. What (un-reflected) assumptions do I do about “center” and “periphery” and were do I seem to place the “center” and the “periphery” in my study?

Just some thought. Ellen Lindblom