Coastal Communities

 Project Description:

I explored the intersection between communities and climate resilience. Specifically, I explored how communities dependent on natural resource-based economies sustain lifeways in an ever-warming and changing climate. I focused in particular on island communities because these locations have extremely small populations and are greatly impacted by climate change due to their dependence on fishing economies. In doing so, I was interested in learning about the many ways that island communities are working to sustain themselves in the face of environmental uncertainty. I worked to not only show the similarities between people and communities what makes them distinct. Through an ethnographic study of island resilience focused on community activism, I worked to draw attention to how individuals and their communities take on the task of climate resilience with their home islands. 

Methodology:

I explore ethnographies through a lens that I learned from Najerà in her article entitled “Auto/Ethnography and Reverse Migrations in South Texas: An Anthropologist’s Testimonio About Method and Meaning in the Gathering of History”. I use Najerà’s term, “auto-ethnography” as my main method in producing my capstone. She defines “auto-ethnography” as an exploration of communities which you are personally tied to. My capstone explores ties of the Maine coastal regional, and collective similarities and differences. As my main method, I worked to create an auto-ethnography from conducting interviews, being a participant observer, and absorbing the feelings of the place through interacting with it. I accomplished this through not only just talking to community members, but also spending time in spaces that feel important to the Members. This looked like: walking around the islands, cooking, chatting over coffee, etc. 

Building trust within these communities is a key methodology of my project. Najerà showed to me this importance through her commitment to embedding herself within the community she was working with. I worked to mimic this by spending time on the different islands with community members while also by building relationships over a longer period. This relationship building process is important for many different reasons but what stands out most to me was that it builds trust. Trust not only adds immensely to the process, but it also forms a link between the researcher and the community. Therefore, trust building is critical in my methodology; I think critically about my positionality in the project as a way to form connections with the community members that I speak to and learn from. 

Through an ethnographic study of climate resilience, I focus on lived experiences. Highlighting lived experiences is an important epistemology that I would like to bring into my project. Through centering lived experiences, I work to show some of the fullness of what community and climate resilience can look like. Through doing this I also work to help fill the gaps that can be left out of scientific archives about this geographic region through an exploration of community and community based knowledge. 

Academic Outcomes / Next Steps:

What came of this project was a collection of 31 interviews from five different island communities on the coast of Maine. The five communities that were involved were, Isles au Haut, Swans Island, Peaks Island, Islesboro, and North Haven.

These conversations widened the scope of the project, pushing me as a scholar to think more critically about what sustainability really is. From these conversation, I was able to make connections between the island communities while still being attentive to their distinct differences.

Moving forward, this research will help me to produce my senior capstone, which will result in a paper that will be produced at the end of the year.

Personal Impact:

I grew up on a Maine island. From birth to when I moving away to college, I spent my life exploring my little island community, memorizing every inch of the place. My connection to the place was deeply personal, as if the island and the ocean around it were a friend. Coming home to do research about the place and the people who live there changed and deepened this relationship with home.

Coming home and being able to do this research was life changing. I was able to think, write, and read critically about home in a way that might not have been possible otherwise. During this time, I was able to deepen my connections with not only my own island community, but also other island communities all along the coast.

My deepest thanks goes to the Keller Family for their support in this project.