Field methods

This study is based on interviews in indigenous communities in the two regions. RAIPON experts developed the methodology and interview questions and trained and supervised project personnel. Regional coordinators were hired for the two regions, and they engaged and supervised assistants associated with the indigenous communities selected for the interviews. Training sessions were held in each region. Selection of indigenous experts and interviews were then conducted by the assistants. The interviews were taped, transcribed by the regional coordinators, and translated by RAIPON translators. Each regional coordinator prepared a report based on her experiences with the project and on feedback from her assistants.

The questionnaire used for the interviews was semi-structured and covered the following areas:

• information about the respondent;
• questions to elicit observations of disasters and the behaviour of the respondent during the disasters;
• questions to elicit observations about disasters that had been conveyed to the respondent by his/her network of relatives and friends;
• questions about how traditional knowledge on disasters is transferred among generations;
• questions on the disasters themselves and their consequences for the respondent’s homeland.

Data analysis methods

A total of 232 people were interviewed for the study. After receiving the transcribed interviews from the regions, the RAIPON project experts analyzed the interviews and selected and categorized the information by strategies for disaster warning, coping and mitigation.

The aim of the analysis was to summarize from the interview texts information on:

• disasters and extreme weather events in each region, and the perception of these occurrences among the indigenous people interviewed;
• how traditional knowledge is used for prevention, early warning, preparedness, response and mitigation of disasters;
• impacts of natural disasters on flora, fauna and ecosystems.

A portion of interviews (about 24%) were discarded through an initial screening. These interviews mainly contained responses such as: “I do not know” or responses which were not related to the project theme. The rest of the interviews, in total 177, were translated into English to go into the project database. Summary statistics and the analysis were based on the information in the database.  Discarded interviews were neither included in the database nor the summary statistics.

In the discussion of results, the references to respondents and numbers of people interviewed should be taken to mean interviews included in the database. Note that the methodology used did not employ a sampling scheme – quantitative results and summary statements are not meant to represent the populations in the study regions, they are simply describing the group of people who were selected on the basis of their knowledge and expertise.