Global Development Institute podcast
Global Development Institute podcast
How can different ways of understanding the world help us tackle the climate emergency? Blanche de Moidrey and Kalani Foster
In this episode, we catch up with two of GDI's second-year PhD students, Blanche de Moidrey and Kalani Foster, to discuss how their research projects relate to the broad themes of indigeneity and knowledge production. We touch on topics including how to grapple with one's positionality as a researcher, the complex political dimensions of indigeneity as a concept, and the ways in which their projects overlap and diverge.
We also discussed Blanche's motivations for setting up a website for her writing, which you can find here: Blanche de Moidrey/ Stewards of the Land
You can also read Blanche's latest article on the GDI blog: Origins of the Human-Nature Separation in Western Thought - Global Development Institute Blog
Find out more about the project with which Kalani is involved - Just Earth Observation for Conservation - on the project website: About the Just Earth Observation for Conservation project
Find out more about the Global Development Institute:
Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters
Speaker 1 [00:00:02] Welcome to the Global Development Institute podcast. Based at the University of Manchester, we're Europe's largest research and teaching institute addressing poverty and inequality. Each episode, we'll bring you the latest thinking, insights, and debate in development study.
Speaker 2 [00:00:29] Welcome everyone to the Global Development Institute podcast. I'm Louisa Hann, Research Commons Officer here at GDI. And I'm joined today by 2 of our excellent PhD students, Blanche de Moidrey and Kalani Foster to chat about their research on everything from climate justice to the frameworks through which we understand the world. So one of the reasons we decided to have this conversation is that Blanche got in contact a few weeks ago to kind of discuss the launch of her website, Stuart's of the... Stewards of the land and republish one of the excellent articles on there for the GDI blog. I'll put the link to the piece in the show notes for this episode. So Blanche, let's start there. What is the purpose of your website? What sort of conversations do you want to spark? And how does this relate to your doctoral research?
Speaker 3 [00:01:18] Yes, hi. Well, thank you for organizing this podcast. We thought this really nice, really exciting. And yes, I got in touch a few weeks ago for.
Speaker 4 [00:01:27] Website that you say is called Stewards of the land. I think I've started the website for three main reasons. I thing the first one came as a frustration with the difficulty of publishing while you're doing a PhD. There is expectations to publish papers but publishing in academic papers means that it's peer review and it's very tedious and it is very long and the timelines can exceed the time that you're going to do a PhD so it can just only happen after you've already submitted the PhD and I really like writing. And I really wanted to keep my writing practice outside of just academic publishing. So that's one of the reasons. And also just have a feeling of, I really recommend it for the PGRs as well, just have the feeling of like, oh, I can write something and put it online and it's available and not something that takes months, years to actually, you know, have the fruit of the seeds you've planted all the way along. So that is nice. I think the second reason is having an audience beyond academia. So we know that academic papers are mainly unavailable for people who are enrolled in a university and all can afford to pay the really high fees of academic papers. So that was really important for me to have this knowledge and share this knowledge beyond academic circles. So hopefully that serves this purpose a little bit. And the third point is, um for creating conversation with participants as well um because a lot of my participants i've started my fieldwork this year were really curious and interested um in my work and they were like oh i can't wait to hear more about it and i was a bit like oh well i'm going to publish a thesis in three years you might want to read that but you probably won't read that um so i feel like it's a good way to yeah to just you know for them to a bit more information about who's interviewing them. And also just to keep in the loop. And thanks to that, I'm hoping to, yeah, organize things with participants that have seen my website and have a way more clear idea of what I'm working on. So yeah, I think those are the main, the main three reasons of why the website. And as you also asked me, what is the website actually about? It's, yeah it's kind of diluting some early research findings of my PhD thesis, which is about finding I guess alternative ways of living with nature or with the modern human as I usually call it because I felt nature is a bit reductive and yeah I don't really like the term. So yeah and I'm basically using or focusing on two sorts of indigenous knowledges so Gaelic and Scotland and Maori New Zealand and how specifically those two approaches can offer a different way of thinking about how we relate and how we live and how we coexist with the modern human in a caring and non-hierarchical way.
Speaker 2 [00:04:30] That's great. Thank you. A really good overview. So Kalani, you're working on, as far as I know, kind of adjacent issues surrounding the impact of biodiversity and conservation projects on indigenous populations. So, yeah, tell us a bit more about your research and the projects with which you're involved.
Speaker 5 [00:04:47] Yeah, thank you. And thank you again for having me on the podcast as well with Blanche. A lot of my work and my PhD project is pretty similar to what Blanche was saying and kind of what she's doing. In a nutshell, my PhD research looks at how satellite data is being used for biodiversity conservation in northern Kenya. With kind of a specific focus on how the use of satellite data in conservation is impacting kind of pastoral communities, indigenous communities, indigenous knowledge or knowledge holders. So again, there's quite a big focus on indigeneity that I think connects between both myself and Blanche. Again, like my research looks at how kind of indigeneity and data and biodiversity all intersect, or if they can coexist, what that coexistence might look like. And I'm currently at the stage where I'm starting my fieldwork, so I'm only at the very beginning stages of seeing what is actually going on in Kenya. I had there this Saturday, So really looking forward to that just personally and research wise.
Speaker 2 [00:06:06] It might also be helpful to explain a little bit about what you mean by indigeneity as a sociopolitical concept for those listeners who may not have explored it in depth, so can I ask you both to kind of reflect on that?
Speaker 4 [00:06:20] Yeah, so I think that's a very interesting question, which I have been thinking about a lot in my work over the last year and a half since I started a PhD, really. And I think there is a slight, I guess, I don't know if I will call it a misconception, but maybe two ways of understanding the word indigenous and indigeneity. There is the term of like, if this is an indigenous plant or species, it means that it comes from a certain place and is indigenous to that place, it's native to that Thanks. I think when we talk about people and culture, I think there's, and when I talk at least in my work about indigeneity, it doesn't necessarily mean that people can organically come from the ground like a species of plants do, but it's more, I I think about indigenity more as a situation rather than a condition of where a culture or peoples are from. And it's a situation in which colonial forces impose a marginalization and alienation. From the culture, the land and the language of some people. So, yeah, it's not in that sense growing out of the ground. But it's very much it's very much something that has to do with colonial powers and the active act of erasing a certain culture in a certain language. I'm kind of repeating myself here. But yeah, I think that's kind of how I understand it now. Can you clone it?
Speaker 5 [00:07:42] Yeah, so Blanche covered that really, really well. In kind of my own research and my work more broadly, I'm also looking at indigeneity specifically as a kind of political term. And if it is a political term, then in my eyes, it's something that can be co-opted. Even just the word indigenous, the label indigenous has power and has meaning behind it, both for, I guess, me as. Junior academic right now I suppose and it's also got very very real political and social meanings in Kenya where I work and in various other landscapes like for example the Maasai are a very commonly recognized and known indigenous group of Kenya and Tanzania even in the UK and in the US And right now, I'm in Zanzibar learning Swahili before I begin my own field work. And last weekend, there, because it's in Zanzebar, it's a very touristy place. There were a lot of Maasai coming to Zanzabar on a ferry from Dar es Salaam. And when I'm talking about this with my tutor, who has grown up and has always lived in Zantabar, One of the things he said is that a lot of the people coming over to sell things to tourists are Maasai, but some of them aren't. And the reason that they still label themselves as Maasais is because labeling themselves that way kind of gives them more legitimacy, and it's something that tourists and outsiders know about, and that's something that can really benefit them in some way. And like Blanche was mentioning, when it comes to the term indigenous and what it means to be indigenous. It looks very different to anyone you ask. Everyone's going to give you a sort of different answer, but there is that kind of assumption or... I can't think of the word. It's implied to have some sort of tie to colonialism, some sort link to colonialism. And that's kind of... Partially what I'm exploring through my PhD as well. Like for example, I'm ahead to Kenya this weekend to officially begin my field work. And when I'm there for this visit, I'm looking at how different people use satellite data for conservation, the same sort of software, whether it's kind of conservancies, veterinarians, and a group of stakeholders that I'm looking at are wildlife sanctuaries that label themselves as indigenous. Even though it's still very, very contentious in Kenya, whether or not they're Kenyan or whether or not they are indigenous or whether there's some mixture or neither. Because, again, indigenous as a term is so political, there is that question of, for my research, is satellite data giving them access to certain spaces or reaffirming power in a sort of way that affects the way that indigeneity is viewed and the kind of credibility of an indigenous institution is portrayed?
Speaker 4 [00:10:58] Yeah, I think which is really interesting and you put your thing on something that is really interesting is how the term indigenous is actually a really relatively new term that emerged out of a very specific context, which is one of seeking international political recognition, which I think is why sometimes the term can be used not necessarily for the intended purposes. So as you said, like was the example you just said, and what came to mind as well is in the current context of living in the UK. The term indigenous has also been used to support a rather evil, racist, ethno-nationalist agenda, which is kind of like the questions as I was talking to before, like who got there first, like who is indigenous to a place, and I think the term can also carry like a really, a really like, it can really support evil agendas as well, Like like we're seeing it. So I think I think there's a lot of it's a very It's a very loaded term, I think, in a sense that and for me it's really more about a situation rather than an identity because when you think about it before that term got used by the by the UN and into international political frameworks, people will not go around and be like I'm indigenous. That's not an identity. Being indigenous is not an entity. Why is an identity is being Maori, it's being, it is being Maasai, it being Moac, it you know, that's, that cultural identity. Indigenous is not an identity, it's a term that is being used to serve certain purposes. But yeah, it is complicated.
Speaker 2 [00:12:38] No yeah that's really helpful thank you and it is complicated and I think you're right I mean there's also something about essentializing the notion of indigeneity that kind of um brings with it a danger of romanticizing it as well going the other way right which is kind of a problem as well so yeah we can get into these issues but so I think what would be helpful now would be to kind of discuss this like idea of like epistemologies and knowledge making right because That's what you'll. Both kind of focusing on. So, Blanche, tell us a little bit more about the potential you see in Indigenous worldviews to look beyond the systems that have so far really failed in helping us to kind of turn the tide on climate change and ecological kind of crises.
Speaker 4 [00:13:28] I think there is kind of two ways to answer this question and I think the first one will be for me and kind of also relating to why did I want to do this research and kind of my personal interest in the research is of a personal realization that I just genuinely do not think that the solutions that we're able to imagine in our current world in the Western word view. Going to be sufficient to address the climate crisis. And I think what we have at hand is such a huge scale disruptive ecological catastrophe really that I think what is needed is to be able to couldn't go think outside the box and to think outside of the system that put us there. And i think it's really important to question the thought system that led us to this into this like state of environmental catastrophe and to thing beyond it. And I think. Because of how Western worldview and Western culture, more generally via colonialism has imposed itself onto practically, to quote unquote again, the rest of the world and has become the dominant in the hegemonic culture. It is the one that is being thought through by a lot of people when thinking about how do we tackle the climate crisis? So for me, it is really important to bring in the knowledges and the cultures and the peoples that have. Been marginalized and alienated by the imposition of that of that culture of the Western culture. So I think yeah so I think it's mainly because I really do not think we can imagine the way out of this crisis within our current system so I thing we need a new standing point and a new and like a non-new because obviously not new but we need it different and an alternative. Anchoring point in a way. And kind of the second point I want to say as well is that I also just do think there's intrinsic value in recognizing other cultures and ways of knowing than the Western one that have been, as I said as well before, for centuries marginalized, colonized via genocides and epistemicides and so epistomicide being epistomology being knowledge. Like removing the knowledge of people often by removing the people themselves. And so I think as as a concern for social justice and justice in general and I think anyone in their right mind would just want a word in which everyone can just live according to their own word view and culture and not one that is imposing the Western word view at the expense of a lot of other ways of knowing. So, yeah, that's how what inside is.
Speaker 2 [00:16:24] That's great, thank you. And, I mean, Kalani, it's any kind of question to you. What different kinds of knowledge creation are you encountering in your work and how do they interact and potentially conflict?
Speaker 5 [00:16:33] So I think, again, Blanche and I look very, very similarly at Indigenous knowledge and indigeneity in the modern world. I think this is one of the areas where we might divert a little bit. Blanche, I completely agree with everything you said, and you kind of mentioned how you're kind of looking at how Indigenous knowledge can be valued and acknowledged and understood in today's world and how we can balance kind of Western and Indigenous knowledge in todays current climate crisis. I think the main difference between what you're doing and kind of what I'm doing in this sense is that a lot of my research and my goals for research is to look more So almost that kind of. Specific instances where Western knowledge or technical knowledge, with my PhD, how it arises in conservation, but how that knowledge and worldview impacts indigenous peoples, local communities, indigenous systems. And a lot of this is also just very personal to me as well, like I am Hawaiian. And when a lot people in the UK and in the mainland United States, think of Hawaii or think of Hawai'i, they think of the 50th U.S. State when a lot of Native Hawaiian communities, my family included, who live on the island, think about this completely differently. Like the United States illegally occupied and are still colonizing Hawaii, and on that sense, separate from my Ph.D. I'm a advocate in Hawaiian sovereignty. But the thing that... Got me interested in satellite data and conservation, how that impacts Indigenous communities and Indigenous knowledge, is the way that big data infrastructures are impacting Native Hawaiian communities. We've seen, for example, the Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii takes daily carbon dioxide readings every day, daily. And they use it to graph how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. And by itself people are going to look at that and think it's a good thing. They're going to think that it's kind of making progress on global climate change agendas, but what a lot of people miss out is that on the kind of local level, on the Hawaiian level, this sort of infrastructure and a reliance on this data is really negatively impacting a lot of Native Hawaiian communities to the point where the observatory that it has taken from exists on sacred ground. And now the United States is trying to build other observatories, is trying build the 30-meter telescope. And the reason that I'm now kind of for my PhD researching the impacts of satellite data on conservation and in indigenous communities in Kenya is because, and I think this is true to an extent of every colonized territory, but the narratives that were used to justify Hawaiian colonization are very similar to the narratives used to justified Kenyan colonization. And I think both Kenya and Hawaii are in similar levels or in similar ways, albeit different ways still, seeing an increase in the use of technology. And with just the use technology in general, you have a lot of people thinking that satellites provide objective information, that drones provide objective information that a satellite will view something on a global scale and it's automatically correct without really acknowledging the kind of biases that go into the algorithms that draw them or the implications of the data centers that house and store a lot of this data and the people who have access to this data versus the people who don't, what it means to monitor Indigenous land on such a wide scale when issues of consent are very, very difficult to achieve or issues of are very difficult to really... Think about just because this is at such a wide and remote scale, if that makes sense. So really, what kind of guides my research when it comes to Indigenous knowledge is what are the assumptions that underpin satellite data? How do these assumptions reproduce inequalities? For indigenous communities and eventually, I'm not too sure if this will be in the remit of my PhD yet, but eventually, how can this data be used in a way that is beneficial for or led by indigenous communities themselves? I'll leave it there, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 [00:21:18] Great, thank you. I think it might be helpful at this point to talk a little bit about your positionalities as researchers and the realities of doing doctoral research about these kind of topics. So yeah, have you experienced difficulties working in new environments or cultures? How are you typically received as researchers working within a global north institution? I don't know which one of you wants to go first?
Speaker 4 [00:21:41] Maybe we should have started there actually, maybe we should have stated by introducing ourselves who we are, because obviously, this is audio recorded. So, you know, or even if people can see what we look like, like I'm a white European woman, I'm French. And I've done most of my high education, all of my higher education in the UK, although others grew up in France. And, and although I was aware of I don't want to say issues of positionality, but of the importance of positionality. Before starting the PhD from my master's, like these are things that obviously when you study development studies, you know, we talk a lot about the colonial foundation of development studies which I think we'll probably talk a bit more later on this podcast. But yeah, I was aware of it, but I think when I picked my research topic I was still not aware of enough. And to be honest, I... I do not know if I would have still decided to study indigenous knowledges if I knew what I knew now. So basically after reading about for about a year and a half about decoloniality decolonical research methods, I think there is just a lot of ethical dilemmas that I constantly think about like probably every day in County and I talk a lot about this together about not being a researcher that research is a community that is not theirs. And Yeah, I have conversations with peers about this all the time. And I think there is a really strong entitlement from Western academia and institutions about just being like, I can just go to the other side of the world and conduct research, like whatever doesn't really matter. But obviously, in the most recent years, there's been a really strong push for like, no, this is not OK. And research needs to benefit the people that you are researching, not just your own research. There needs to be. Positive impact generated by your research in the communities you are researching. Which I think is practically really hard to do because we know that thesis and research is, I mean, at least mine feels really theoretical and I really struggled to see the positive role that I can have for the communities I'm researching with besides the fact that I, and especially when I work with the Gaelic community in Scotland, being a really small community, almost someone. An indigenous Gaelic presence that almost extent community. The language is spoken by less than one person of people and the culture has been really lost and diluted into Scottish culture. And someone told me, like, I guess an elder told me that it is really important what I'm doing because it gives a voice and it spreads a message that they would not necessarily been able to do if it wasn't for someone that has more connection and more of a network and an English university and, you know, is a bit like, is able to podcast and write a website and like kind of spread that knowledge and be like, raise awareness. So there's a role there. I think that can be framed as positive, but ultimately I think it's just very difficult and I think, and the more I think about it is that the work I think really needs to incorporate people whose knowledge it is. And I think in my research, because a PhD is still very much like an individual endeavor, it's really hard to make it fully co- collaborating with someone or co-writing with someone, I think you can't co-write your PhD. Your PhD, it's like you're a single author. I mean, I'm sure there is a ways of co- writing PhDs now that exist as a response to this, but ultimately the more traditional form is an individual endeavor. So yeah, I think this needs to be challenged. I think if we're talking about knowledge, it can be separated from the fact that it is not just knowledge, it is. This knowledge is part of a system, there's a culture, there's the language and there's peoples and those peoples need to be involved in the sharing or not of that knowledge. Like they should be the only people that have the final say about what to do with the knowledge because it is their knowledge. So I could speak about this for hours and I think it is very tricky. And I think I did not know enough before locking in my thesis title and my field work. I think it's only later by reading a lot about methodologies and talking to a lot of people that was like I had a lot crisis I was just like trying just not go to New Zealand try just not research that and I was about to just not do it um and and that's why I've decided to focus more in Scotland because I was like this is a bit more home because I've been living in the UK for a while so it's still not my community it feels a bit closer because it's you know you can drive there don't have to fly for like 24 hours but still it's till not my community. So it's really tricky and I think there's just a lot of thoughts that need to be put into it and really questioning whether it is okay for Western researchers to do that.
Speaker 2 [00:26:53] I think you bring up an interesting point there about sort of being a solo pursuit, because I mean, Kalani, you have a very different way of working, I presume, with the projects. You have more colleagues than Blanche Wood in terms of your methodologies, etc. So, yeah, if you could reflect on that.
Speaker 5 [00:27:11] Yeah, yeah, of course. Again, what Blanche was saying is completely true. I have been quite fortunate with my PhD in that I'm connected to a larger project that is also working in Kenya. So even before stepping foot in Kenya to begin my own field work, I've had the opportunity to come out here twice already. And like Blanche is saying, there's lots of ethical considerations of going in as... A global north researchers to somewhere in the global south and looking at and researching and indigeneity and indigenous knowledge and indigenous communities and for me personally it's kind of been the sort of struggle of I do have this interest and kind of exposure to some similar issues just on the basis of being Hawaiian and having Native Hawaiian family members. But again like I'm very I'm in most situations very white presenting just being kind of mixed between mixed Hawaiian and white and growing up in the United States and doing all of my university education in the united kingdom but again having a larger project that I could draw for support was really invaluable for me. With my current PhD approach, I and trying really to make it kind of as co-produced as possible like Blanche was saying there's some just natural difficulties with you're producing a PhD thesis that you only you can really be the author of but for example I will be out in Kenya for two trips I've got one upcoming one this Saturday the research that I'm doing for this trip isn't really community-based. It's not at the local level, it's again looking more at how different institutions use conservation software and if this gives them more legitimacy and what this means for grassroots conservation actors. And then in my previous two visits out to Kenya I've again had the opportunity to meet people in the landscape, to meet kind of locally led organizations, to meet a research assistant. And really ensure that when I am kind of doing the more co-produced community-focused research, it's with people who are in Kenya and who are local and can really make sure that the stuff that I'm doing is both appropriate and useful. I think another key aspect of working with kind of local or indigenous communities that you're not from, that you are an outsider to, is just also almost embracing the fact that like impact and familiarity is a long process, like it would be unethical of me to kind of go out and say I want to change the state of Indigenous communities inclusion and conservation in Kenya right now because I realistically have got so much learning left to do and I'm lucky enough to the point where I've got partners who can help me learn when I am in Kenya.
Speaker 2 [00:30:29] I think we're running fairly long now, so I think maybe just one more question to kind of wrap stuff up would be great. There are clearly still kind of valuable forms of knowledge to have emerged within Western epistemological paradigms. What are your thoughts about balancing and utilizing indigenous methodologies against those produced within Western contexts, you know, such as satellite data collection, for example? Let's start with you, Blanche.
Speaker 4 [00:30:53] Yeah, so I think this is really interesting because I think this is where Kearney and I maybe diverge a little bit in how we do things. Because I think, from what I've understood and what I know of Kearneys research is way more about maybe having, working the two or two knowledge systems together, whereas I feel like, in my own head, in my own worldview, it's very much about, I feel really truncal for like justice of of word views that have been erased and alienated and marginalized. And for me, I really want to create with in my own thesis, the space for those sort of word view. So I'm I'm working specifically, as I said, on Gaelic word view and on Maori word word view and culture. So it's calling in New Zealand and then drawing basically just a lot of why I haven't really said why I'm focusing on those two bits, because it's almost the points are the most further away on the planet. Yet both have been experiencing colonialism from the English Empire. And I think as Kanye was saying, the similarities between colonialism and Hawaii and one Kenya, they all take very similar structures and forms and I think the knowledge that is being erased in those cases is often quite similar, obviously not not to how much nice at all indigenous knowledges but I think it's just a very valuable knowledge that doesn't necessarily exist in the Western one. So I think for me, the way that I'm trying to do this is not necessarily reconcile. And maybe that will change. I'm only my, preemptively I'm saying that, I'm on my second year of my PhD, thoughts evolve all the time. But it's not necessarily about reconciling Western knowledge and Indigenous knowledge, but it's very much about creating the space that I think Indigenous culture, people's land deserve and trying to give it a bit more visibility. And ultimately, this is also what I'm trying to do with the website. And, but that also comes, as we just said, with a lot of ethical, ethical dilemmas of, am I the right person to do this? Um, or am I just acknowledging that it's not mine and just reproducing the exact same harms? So it was really difficult because I might just not be the right person to see that, um, and that will just take a lot of correlations and. Support and advice and guidance from indigenous peoples themselves that tell me what to do. So yeah it's really tricky and maybe I'll read something or have a conversation and next week or in a month or in the year they'll completely change my vision on this. So it's very, knowledge is never really set and always evolves and that's also the beauty of it and I can only speak for what I know today so I think that's it.
Speaker 2 [00:33:45] That's great. Thank you. And Kalani, do you want to react to that?
Speaker 5 [00:33:49] Yeah, yeah. Similar to Blanche again, I'm just gonna put up my disclaimer that the stuff I say specifically with this question is subject to change. It's probably definitely just gonna change over the course of my PhD just as I learn more and hopefully grow both as kind of a person and a researcher in this sort of space. My intentions with my sort of research, Like Blanche was saying, is kind of a bit of a difference between the two of us. There's definitely some similarities, but like, again, Blanche was saying, she hopes to kind of make the space for Gaelic and Maori knowledge to kind of come through and analyze, really just make the space for those sorts of local and kind of indigenous knowledges in today's world. What I kind of foresee my PhD doing, again just right now, I haven't technically started fieldwork. Yeah, so this is definitely subject to change. But I kind of see my contribution of my thesis being more of a sort of examination of the opportunities and barriers towards promoting kind of governance or analysis practices of satellite data and conservation from an Indigenous lens and deals with kind of managing this data in a way that is collaborative with, beneficial for local communities. On how to do this. So I'm gonna go ahead, and I'll show you And I'll just go ahead A lot of this kind of comes from a bit of a slightly mystic attitude I guess I have towards satellite data just because conservation has become such a big global buzzword in and of itself and a big global agenda there is part of me that thinks no matter what I do for my PhD like satellite data is still going to be a massive tool it's going to be used globally it's gonna be used like it's going to, it monitors so many Indigenous peoples' lands and so many local lands without even their consent. And basically what my PhD is kind of trying to do at the moment is take a step back and kind of acknowledge the harms of the current trajectory. And then hopefully later on there's a kind of bigger impact of again looking at how these arms can be rectified. But again, with the kind of ethics of working with Indigenous peoples or with that kind of scope and mind.
Speaker 2 [00:36:16] So yeah, thank you both so much for your insights there. And thank you for agreeing to come on. I know it's really daunting, I suppose, when you're at an early stage in your PhD journey to come and talk about your ideas, but it's been so interesting. And I think if you could just both tell us, or the audience, direct them to any resources or any kind of links or websites or. Things where they can find out more about your work in you and the projects in general, that'd be great.
Speaker 3 [00:36:49] I guess for me, I've already spoke about it 30 times in the past. It's just, I guess I'm at the height that I'm trying to do this.
Speaker 4 [00:36:55] But it's the website I've started recently where I've published two articles already. I haven't published a third one yet, thought I would by this time, haven't. It's going to be on an irregular basis and it's called Stewards of the Land. I think you can also find it just by tapping my name, Blanche de Maudrey on the internet. And yeah, that's pretty much where my work is.
Speaker 2 [00:37:15] And you have a newsletter so don't you could sign up.
Speaker 4 [00:37:18] Yeah you can sign up to a newsletter yeah good point where so then you can you can just know have a little notification in your inbox every time i publish something which is great and won't be that frequent that you can rest assured and cloney
Speaker 5 [00:37:31] Yeah, I don't have a website yet, so yeah, can't really look at that for any updates. But again, I'm part of a larger project, the Just Earth Observation for Conservation project led by Rose Pritchard and Timothy Foster. We've got a LinkedIn group. I would definitely kind of recommend joining that just because for now, at least I am planning to hopefully write a blog on the GDI website for each of my fieldwork visits and case studies and that will definitely also just be advertised through that group. It's also just a way to see what the rest of the Kenya team is up to and just the rest of the other kind of project partners and case-studies as well. So yeah, I would definitely recommend kind of joining that if you're interested in keeping up with some of the stuff that I'm doing or work that is similar to mine. At the moment.
Speaker 2 [00:38:30] Great, thank you. Kalani Blanche, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, Louisa.
Speaker 5 [00:38:35] Thank you.