2.3 Community consultation and engagement
The village level is spatially the lowest statutory administrative unit
in Tanzania and as such, provides two key advantages for our
participatory research approach. First; at this level, local
environmental knowledge and understanding of farm-specific soil
condition, water run-off and seasonal micro-climate is the most finely
nuanced and second; planning and implementation of potential
institutional and community responses has the highest chance of success
because those directly affected by the problems are also directly
engaged in designing workable solutions (Blake et al. 2018). Previous
co-design work with these communities has shown that strong
participatory engagement and knowledge exchange has delivered better
understanding of the impact of social, cultural and economic drivers on
soil management challenges. This approach underpins the model of
engagement discussed in this paper. Participatory approaches enable
affected stakeholders to jointly define the scale and nature of the
problem, find common ground in determining impacts and identify relevant
policy mechanisms and levers for reform. Our previous research has
demonstrated that good soil management is needed which necessitates
farmers and land managers to be empowered to continue to innovate
towards sustainable resource conservation. The ambition of participatory
research is to catalyse the development of a culture of mutual
understanding of potentially competing interests, and willingness to
support honest and open dialogue built around shared understanding of
the socio-economic and well as the hydrological connectivity of the
landscape (Brown, 2002; Moore and Westley, 2011).
Building on previous participatory research carried out with Emaerete
community, a workshop was designed to bring the co-produced set of
visual materials and associated results back to the community and to use
them as a mechanism to explore key elements of local hydrological,
biological and socio-economic connectivity in generating soil erosion
issues. The workshop was held in Emaerete community, attended by twenty
participants from the community and five district government personnel
who were further consulted on workshop outcomes. All discussions were
conducted in Swahili, with facilitation by Tanzanian members of the
research team, and with concurrent translation for English-speaking team
members. Discussions were audio recorded, subsequently transcribed and
translated into English.
Following a brief introduction on the format of the workshop and the
collaborative research activities to be completed, work was structured
into two elements:
- A short ‘report back’ and review session providing feedback on the
wider ‘Jali Ardhi’ project research findings to date, (Blake et al.,
2018; Rabinovich et al., 2019; Wynants et al., 2020, 2018) and team
learning from community experiences regarding erosion mitigation
measures taken to date. Measures included demarcated livestock
exclusion zones for gully rehabilitation; and community commitments to
plant trees and shrubs; reduce vegetation cutting and change livestock
grazing patterns.
- Introduction and discussion of the drone survey aerial photo mosaic
(one A0 scale copy for group discussion) and A2 scale copies for ease
of handling be individual participants); an infographic tool
highlighting soil erosion processes; and a set of previously produced
local erosion impact photographs.
These visual tools were used by both the research team and participants
in multiple ways to illuminate discussion points and trace hydrological
connectivity within the landscape. Using visual methods such as
photographs and the DEM model has the distinct advantage of creating a
shared frame of reference and intuitive understanding despite the
complex and abstract nature of the information. Visual methods using
photographs and images are particularly helpful in supporting a process
of joint learning, negotiation and reflection, around which soil erosion
issues and associated connectivity can be identified. Image-elicitation
is based on the use of one or a series of photographs or other images in
a participatory research context, in order to reach a deeper
understanding of something (Harper, 2002). Image-elicitation can
stimulate empathetic understanding and draw out connections that might
not otherwise be made. In this multi-stakeholder context, discussion
alone faces the challenge of creating a trusting environment between
participants from widely differing backgrounds and philosophical
standpoints, and there is a need to ‘bridge the gap’. Image-elicitation
techniques can overcome these differences by offering a shared frame of
reference (a composite image of the wider context, or of a particular
issue, for example) on which to build trust and through which deeper
insights can emerge than would otherwise be achieved through discussion
alone (Collier and Collier, 1986).