University of Montana doctoral student Catherine Sanders, with the advice of Dr. Kimber Haddix McKay, will undertake research on how people who live in insecure environments respond to technological innovations (such as safe drinking water, systems, solar lighting, and smokeless stoves). The research will be carried out in two villages in Humla District, a western-region mountain district of Nepal. There, because of rising population, failing national infrastructure, and the effects of the recent political insurgency, villagers rank the acquisition of basic resources, food, shelter and clothing, as major sources of stress. However, when an NGO (non-governmental organization) introduced community development technologies designed to mitigate these sources of stress, communities were not equally receptive. In one village, the new technologies were adopted quickly, while in the other, they were viewed with extreme caution. This project will examine why this difference existed.
The researcher will employ seasonal surveys and participant observation to provide qualitative and quantitative information about local political and socio-economic vulnerability, perceptions of risk in relation to the technologies, and whether, and to what degree, villagers have accepted the technologies. Analyses of these data will test 1)whether household status predicts differential acceptance of new and risky technologies, as modeled by dominant risk theories; 2) whether marginal members of a household influence decision making about the technologies in the household; and 3) whether exposure to the Maoist ideology that accompanied the insurgency affects perceptions of and engagement with the technologies.
This analysis of the uptake of new technologies offers an opportunity to understand human decision-making in the face of extreme resource and socio-political stress. It will contribute to the science of livelihood decision making and risk taking by examining factors other than socioeconomic status to understand household risk-aversion. Answers to the questions raised in this research project also may help prevent the negative consequences of livelihood decline in vulnerable environments. Finally, the research will contribute to the education of a social scientist.
