MCC Climate Change Immersion Camp: place-based collaboration across worldviews
August 9-12, 2016
Kiolakaʻa Ranger Station, Kaʻū
Documentary Film Released in April 2017!
Check out our film produced from the August 2016 PI-CASC Climate Change Immersion Camp! View the 10-minute documentary film, Resilient Voices: Adaptation Across Worldviews, below, or download from the USGS website.
Synopsis
Building bridges across distinct worldviews, and thereby strengthening local networks accountable to specific landscapes and seascapes, is not a straightforward process and requires time. Yet by employing knowledge co-production (i.e., community-driven research pathways), long-term networks can increasingly root the scientific method within the needs, values, and practices of well-defined communities and places, profoundly expanding capacities of adaptation, resilience, and sustainability. In August of 2016, the PI-CASC Manager Climate Corps’ Climate Change Immersion Camp utilized a wide range of in-person experiences and knowledge forms to expand local professional and community networks, while improving our understanding of one another’s worldviews. We invite you to experience the camp through our short film in the above link.
The Setting
The PI-CASC Manager Climate Corps (MCC) co-developed (involving over 30 event planners) and hosted the Climate Change Immersion Camp at the Kiolakaʻa Ranger Station in the Kaʻū Forest Reserve from August 9 through 12 of 2016. The event showcased the first cohort of 2-year graduate research projects within the MCC. The projects were driven by local natural resource managers across Hawaiʻi Island. Camping at the ranger station over these four days and three nights, participants experienced a unique outdoor environment within which transdisciplinary professionals could meet in person, network, and deepen understanding across diverse worldviews through collaborative activities.
The Goal
The goal of the practitioner-driven MCC Climate Change Immersion Camp was to build upon existing local professional networks by engaging diverse knowledge forms while uniting local natural and cultural managers with cutting edge research support. Building upon placed-based professional networks is a powerful means by which to increase the capacity of our local communities to be adaptive, resilient, and sustainable through socio-ecological change.
“It’s no easy task to bring everyone together of different backgrounds, but it’s those points where we can start to have the uncomfortable but important conversations outside of just climate change science. This camp made me reflect on how to deepen our relationships to place and channel our energy that includes all voices within the group at all levels. It was good for us to see how these collaborations start – where the rubber meets the road. I’m starting to really think through steps moving forward to create the change we all are working towards in our own disciplines and networks.”
– Kanoe Morishige, PhD candidate, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Spanning Worldviews
Guided by the MCC’s foundation of “getting to know one’s neighbor”, the immersion camp created an exploratory forum for 57 cultural practitioners, managers, scientists, graduate students, policy professionals, and community leaders to come together in person to collectively address important issues attendees face within complex times of change. Co-created open forums, such as this immersion camp, break new ground by uniting distinct worldviews in growing collaboration and offer a major step forward in building upon long-term trust across local professional and community networks.
Themes
The three core themes of the immersion camp were: knowledge co-production (collaborative research), place-based stewarship, and multiple knowledge forms (e.g., experience, cultural norms/values, instinct, intuition, intellect, etc.). The camp took place outdoors amid native forest species to stress experiential, relational knowledge (i.e., engaging multiple knowledge forms) and uniting diverse experiences within a sense of place, ecologically and culturally. At the conclusion of the immersion camp, participants indicated strong interest in continuing to develop and strengthen relationships across sectors of human and more-than-human communities in order to expand local resiliency, adaptation, and sustainability.
“Hearing the history and moʻolelo of the place was one of my favorite parts of the whole camp. It helps you build a connection to place, and build a more comprehensive perspective on culture, modernization, natural resources and where you fit in. Please have more of these [camps] in the future.”
– anonymous quote from a graduate student in the post-event survey
Attendance Details
- The Climate Change Immersion Camp supported efforts to build local adaptive capacity through socio-ecological change by involving over 30 event planners to co-develop the experience.
- The 4-day, 3-night workshop was a collaborative undertaking between the University of Hawaiʻi’s staff, faculty, and graduate students; as well as federal, state, county, and nonprofit organizations.
- The event was led by 28 presenters.
- Throughout the camp, the minimum number of participants (event “fellows”) on a given day was 33. The maximum was 48.
- 58 fellows participated in the camp, which included 15 graduate students (10 masters students from UH Hilo, 4 PhD students from UH Mānoa, and 1 masters student from University of Guam), 17 natural and cultural resource managers focused on Hawaii Island, 10 scientists (1 sociologist, 3 anthropologists, 3 biologists, 1 hydrologist, 1 marine scientist, 1 geographer), 4 policy professionals, 6 administrators, 2 participants from the field of communications and film making, and 4 in other fields.
- Of the 58 total fellows, 36 were women and 22 were men
- 23 fellows participated in the entire camp (4 days and 3 nights).
- All 5 graduate students from the first Manager Climate Corps cohort were key participants and presenters throughout the experience.
“For me, the take home message from this camp was the importance of collaboration of people from different professional and cultural perspectives. It was a good experience to actually engage in building these relationships among this diverse group. It seems like this is an important first step, building trust among this community of people who all want to protect Hawaiʻi in the face of climate change. From this camp I did not learn too much about the impacts of climate change in Hawaiʻi, but rather, I gained a view into the world of collaboration, a world we need to welcome if we are going to find solutions. I think this camp was a great starting point, and I thank you for letting me be a part of it.”
– anonymous quote from a graduate student in the post-event survey