Uncertainty: a consistent theme since Covid-19 became a Global Pandemic and societies went into various forms of lockdown. Those of us in Western countries and more affluent spaces are largely unfamiliar with and often afraid of this level of uncertainty. However, there has been decades of research into how humans can live with uncertainty to create reliability. Dr Ian Scoones from the STEPS (Social, Technological, and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre at the Institute of Development Studies joins us on this podcast to discuss his decades of his research on uncertainty grounded in the lived realities and experiences of pastoral communities in East Africa as well as the experience of disease outbreaks including Ebola and the Avian Flu. We inquire into what can be learned - and what has not been learned from other countries. I studied with Dr Scoones and Dr Melissa Leach and his team many years ago, and it was wonderful to reconnect at this time.
Much is revealed, especially the deep divisions between different ways of thinking about and living with uncertainty. While we are critical of simplistic, top-down approaches to attempts to control deeply complex situations such as pandemics and recognize the limitations of scientific models, we also are in no way dismissing the importance of epidemiology. Instead, working with uncertainty requires a wide array of knowledge bases: a process that requires integrating social and cultural knowledge alongside of the knowledge formed by scientific models. Unfortunately, we are really lacking the mid-level people who can help integrate the community based understanding and the meta-knowledge to enable varied, safe responses. Without such approaches and people, we lapse into an either-or mentality. We flounder without the skills of actively creating reliability out of uncertainty, especially those of us who are used to a predictable lifestyle.
Resources that we mentioned:
The IDS's current work on the Pandemic
The STEPS' Centre backlog of work on pandemics and the social dimensions of pandemics
The Pastres Program: Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: global lessons from the margins
Ian Scoones, Melissa Leach and their team's new book on the Politics of Uncertainty (the open access version will be available from May 20 onwards)
Paul Richards' book: How A People's Science Ended an Epidemic
Richards' recent article on Ebola and Covid: What might Africa teach the world?
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