Controversies between experts

To read first:

LANDSCAPE AND ZONATION

Six experts involved in the development of this course debate the question of zoning. Each one illustrates his/her position and puts it into perspective using experiences on the field. 
On the agenda:

Part 1

• Analysis of the landscape: essential or a time-consuming luxury?
  
• Is it necessary to have the viewpoint of an informed expert or one with no preconceived ideas?
  
• In which season should it be done?
  
• What does a farmer's viewpoint of the environment bring to this question?
  
• What is the interest of adding viewpoints from different disciplines, like sheets of tracing paper superimposed on a model?  
  
• What should be the criteria for explaining and zoning a landscape?

Part 2

• Zoning according to biophysical data does not necessarily exemplify the diversity of ways to value the landscape; examples in Uganda and Cameroon!
  
• A list of pertinent factors explaining the diversity is necessary to develop in each case!
  
• The toolbox to carry this out must be well-stocked!
  
• Farmers always have good reasons to do what they do, but the reason that they cite is not always the good one!
  
• It is necessary to go into people's homes, but it is also necessary to know when to keep the distance.

AGRARIAN HISTORY

Just as one cannot accept only a snapshot of the present in order to understand the diversity of strategies...
Just as one strategy is not simply a project, but it is part of a dynamic, a continuum...
Just as we make the assumption that the present is the result of History and that the future is built on the decisions made today...
...thus, we can affirm that a Historical study is not a time-consuming luxury reserved for researchers, but that it is essential for an astute approach to actors' strategies AND system dynamics 

But what History/histories to question and how?
That of institutions? That of agricultural policies? That of techniques? That of families? That of farms? The general History of states? And that of land tenure, soil, population, climate and the market?

Based on who: the elderly, scholars, decision-makers, citizens?

• Interview people individually or in groups?
  
• How to handle uncertain memories, discourses about the "good old days", explanations made by knowledgeable people and those considered leaders? 
  
• Do we know how to quantify historical dynamics?
  
• Do we know how to evaluate a systems' resilience or a farmer's reactivity?
  
• Can we map elderly people's memories, compare them to photographs, to perceptions?
  
• Do we know how to confront discourse and figures?

TYPOLOGY

The "typology" is the brainchild (sic !) given in general as a major element to conclude/finalize a study.

The debate about this topic among the authors of this course has obliged them to return to the fundamental questions that must be asked for every study:

• Prepare the problem statement
  
• What are the variables.
  
• From who do we collect data, how should the data be analyzed, confirmed, completed?
  
• The necessary simplification of complex systems: who/what is beyond, who/what is within? Where are the boundaries of the model?
  
• Who should be involved in the study? What disciplines should be involved?
  

How to make decisions about the topic: desire to understand everything without being able to finish versus oversimplifying and making false conclusions  
Finding a truce: and finally, a peace pact is signed in the war between Qualitative and Quantitative: each has its rightful place at the right time!

Altogether this is a dynamic way to recall or to put into perspective the lessons of the course “Qualitative survey methods applied to natural resource management” when applying them to diversity analysis...