GroundWork for Community-Based Conservation

Strategies for Social Research

By (author) Diane Russell, Camilla Harshbarger

Publication date:

13 May 2003

Length of book:

336 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780742504370

While ecological and biophysical sciences have dominated the theory and practice of conservation, practitioners and researchers worldwide know that conservation initiatives have profound social impacts and consequences for local communities and cultures. This concise and accessible book will give students and practitioners a solid introduction to important methods from ethnography and interviews to surveys and community mapping, always attending to the imperatives of local control and community partnerships.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Conservation as Human Behavior
Chapter 3: Social Elements of Conservation
Chapter 4: Resource Management Systems
Chapter 5: Economic Systems
Chapter 6: Population and Social Systems
Chapter 7: Belief and Knowledge Systems
Chapter 8: Ethics, Targets, and Planning
Chapter 9: Partnership
Chapter 10: Organizing the Research
Chapter 11: Regional Studies
Chapter 12: Interviewing
Chapter 13: Ethnographic Approaches
Chapter 14: Surveys
Chapter 15: Action Research
Chapter 16: Learning and Communicating

No classroom or project addressing sustainable development should be without this book. Based on their hard-won field experiences and insights, Russell and Harshbarger carry us beyond the participatory methodology fetish that has tended in recent years to marginalize solid social science research in community-based conservation. Not interested in producing another 'how-to' manual, the authors lay out the ground work for serious social research analysis based on theories and methods informed by science and critical perspectives. The outcome is a much needed fresh approach to projects that serve local communities and conservation, not the needs of outside agencies for rapid results or scientists for predictive models.