The cyclone Bingiza
In the early morning hours of February 14, 2011, a category 3 cyclone struck Northeastern Madagascar, making landfall only kilometers away from the rural, coastal village of Imorona. Named Bingiza, the storm moved inland from the coast, destroying an estimated 80% of village homes, flooding rice fields, and damaging many of the clove trees and vanilla vines in the agroforestry fields that residents depend upon for income. Somewhat remarkably, the village of Imorona, along with the surrounding villages, reported no deaths caused by the cyclone.
One week after the storm, I traveled to Imorona—the site of my on-going cultural anthropology research. The majority of Imorona's approximately 2000 residents are smallholder farmers, who cultivate subsistence and market crops within diversified agroforestry landscapes (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017). Food crops in this region include hillside and paddy rice, breadfruit trees, cassava, fruit trees and sweet potatoes, while the main market crops are coffee, vanilla and cloves. In general, parents divide their land holdings equally among all of their children, and in some cases lineages have farmed the same parcels of land for more than eight generations. I first arrived to the village in 2005 as a Peace Corps volunteer, and later returned to conduct long-term anthropological research on the linked ecological, cultural and historical dimensions of these agro-ecological systems. Over my years working with this community, I had observed individuals face a variety of significant challenges, including a vanilla market crash, minor cyclones and a presidential coup.
Walking through Imorona with farmers in the aftermath of Bingiza, however, proved to be the most severe disruption to the community that I had yet to witness. I remained in the village for 5 weeks, and during this time I had a first-hand look at the effects of the storm. Working alongside smallholder farmers, I assisted with rebuilding thatched homes, clearing brush from agroforestry fields, and salvaging rice seedlings from damaged paddies. People were busy and focused, often working through the nights in their fields. On top of these repairs, people were active in community meetings, farmer association activities, and church groups. In these weeks, there was also a marked increase in the interest in oral histories, as people actively sought out the tales of the older people in town, especially regarding the infamous cyclone of 1959—to date, the most severe cyclone in living memory.
Below, I examine this prominence of oral history narratives in the wake of the storm, arguing that these narratives played not only important material roles in rebuilding local agricultural systems, but also useful symbolic roles as well (Lauer, Reference Lauer2012). In relating oral histories, people from across age groups, genders, religious affiliations and ancestral lineages gathered together. Such gatherings reconfirmed membership in a shared community and helped people connect their own situation with the larger record of collective memory. Overall, the increased interest in oral histories after the cyclone points to the cyclical nature of environmental knowledge, and suggests that in assessing community resilience one should not only focus on quantifiable measures, but also on the more qualitative realms of shared legacies, hope and belonging.
Oral histories and the study of climate change
In connecting oral history narratives with disaster recovery efforts, I build upon multidisciplinary research examining the social and cultural effects of climatic disturbances including volcanic eruptions, violent storms and sudden floods—the sorts of disruptions that are predicted to increase in scope and intensity with global climate change (Mendelsohn et al., Reference Mendelsohn, Dinar and Dalfelt2000). Collectively, this research argues that such disturbances should be understood not only as ‘natural’ climatic forces, but also as historically situated, socio-economic events (Hewitt, Reference Hewitt and Hewitt1983; Oliver-Smith, Reference Oliver-Smith1996). To better understand the coupled human-environmental systems of climate change, academics and practitioners have called for integrating multidisciplinary research that includes qualitative methodologies (Mercer et al., Reference Mercer, Dominey-Howes, Kelman and Lloyd2007; Crate, Reference Crate2011; Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Dove, Lahsen, Mathews, McElwee, McIntosh, Moore, O'Reilly, Orlove, Puri, Weiss and Yager2013).
Oral history narratives represent one such qualitative method. Oral histories, long used by scholars in the social sciences and the humanities, encourage individuals to render history in their own words, reflecting upon the connections between the present and the past by drawing from their unique perspectives (Cruikshank, Reference Cruikshank2001). Oral history narratives aim to record both the events of history, and how memories become encoded into the stories that people tell to themselves, and to others. Indeed, it is often the contextual details, narrative leaps and apparent contradictions that prove most fruitful to researchers interested in understanding how events of the past reverberate through the everyday lives of individuals (Dove, Reference Dove2008; Nightingale, Reference Nightingale2016).
These characteristics of oral histories make them well suited for climate change research on agrarian systems. First, oral histories may contain information that can assist agrarian communities prepare for and recover from the effects of climatic change, including by recording which food varieties can be successfully preserved, or which species act as emergency food sources (Mercer et al., Reference Mercer, Dominey-Howes, Kelman and Lloyd2007). Some research notes that memories passed along from previous hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions or storms, can foster more effective emergency responses (McAdoo et al., Reference McAdoo, Dengler, Prasetya and Titov2006). In addition, collecting oral history accounts immediately after a disaster occurrence has shown to provide a cathartic outlet for individuals, who use such narrative opportunities to process and categorize seemingly random and often-traumatic events (Cashman and Cronin, Reference Cashman and Cronin2008; Sloan, Reference Sloan2008). Finally, climate change narratives can reveal systematic inequities of class, race and gender (Enarson, Reference Enarson1998; Anderson, Reference Anderson2009).
In examining how Malagasy community members turned to oral history narratives following the Bingiza cyclone, I observed many of the themes outlined above. I also, however, noted additional ways that oral histories provided resources to Imorona residents not only through the information they conveyed, but also through the very process of their telling.
Telling the tale
When I arrived to Imorona a week after the storm, the night of the cyclone was naturally still very much on everyone's mind. While this region experiences cyclones relatively frequently, Bingiza was significantly stronger than the usual storms to hit the area. Nearly each person I encountered wanted to talk with me about Bingiza, how scared they were, how many clove trees they lost and what home damage they sustained. People with cows or pigs recounted how the animals wandered around the village after their pens blew away. People talked about moving from house to house throughout the night, and that by morning a dozen or more people would be huddled within each of the few houses still standing. People, they told me, were scared that they were going to die.
After this initial rush of telling, the overall tenor of conversations in the community shifted, becoming focused on the work of rebuilding homes and fields. People were acutely worried about the food shortages to come, as much of the rice crop was damaged by the storm. It was then I noticed village elders circulating in increased numbers among family dinner tables and community gatherings. Instead of being ignored—a common complaint I heard from elder community members during my previous years of research—elders were being sought out by the younger generations who seemed, at last, eager to hear their stories. There was one story in particular that residents wanted to hear: the story of the massive cyclone and subsequent flooding that occurred in Imorona in 1959. People asked to hear about the damage the storm caused, the effects on crops, what people ate to fend off starvation and if it was true that crocodiles came into town after the cyclone, carried by the flooded rivers. These accounts drew together a multi-generational audience that included young children, older teenagers, younger farmers and middle-aged men and women, often with children of their own.
As elders spoke, their narratives of past cyclones would touch upon other memories as well, including what crops people cultivated for food and for trade at various points in the village's history. These tales included agricultural advice for making it through storms. For example, people mentioned unconventional plant species that people ate after the 1959 storm, including the young leaves of the hasina plant (Draceana reflexa)—a revelation that elicited uncomfortable laughter from some younger members of the audience. Others noted that farmers used to cultivate cassava plants and other tuber species scattered within their agroforestry parcels, instead of employing the current technique of establishing small lowland cassava fields closer to town, which saves farmer labor, but leaves crops more vulnerable to flooding. In addition to such material advice, sharing memories served another purpose: it reminded people that they were part of a shared historical narrative, and that they therefore belonged to a community that had faced—and overcome—environmental challenges repeatedly in the past.
In these shared oral history narratives, agroforestry landscapes played a key role in creating a sense of collective memory and belonging. In Imorona, agroforestry fields are deeply connected to one's identity, as individuals strive to become skilled and careful farmers. This land stewardship, in turn, not only provides material resources to households, but also conveys respect for ancestral relationships (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017). Over the generations, these managed forests have proved incredibly resilient, withstanding repeated economic, social and ecological challenges. Indeed, people in this region refer to their agroforestry landscapes as voly maharitra, or ‘the land that lasts’ (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017).
It is not surprising, then, that in the gatherings after Bingiza, elder residents looked towards agroforestry landscapes to convey a sense of collective history and responsibility. They noted, for example, that many of the productive clove trees that middle-aged farmers today harvested for income were originally planted after the 1959 cyclone. One such elder, for example, reminded her listeners:
After that storm, our clove trees, they were gone. Almost all gone. What did we do? We planted…We planted for our children. We were hungry—we ate hasina plants–we didn't even have salt! What did we do? We planted…Here, we plant coffee, vanilla, and cloves.
Over the short term, reminding people that previous generations overcame similar set-backs and continued to care for their fields provided motivation to younger farmers to replant clove trees, fruit trees and vanilla vines within their own agroforestry landscapes. This support proved especially useful 3 or 4 weeks following the cyclone, when the first major push to rebuild homes and to replant rice fields was completed, and people were left feeling drained. It was during this time that people contemplated the next major task on their list: replanting their hillside agroforestry fields. Many of the farmers I spoke with expressed weariness when faced with this endeavor—a task that required much effort, with benefits seen only after several years when the trees finally began producing fruits. Francis, the father of three young daughters, was one such individual tempted to leave the task of replanting trees to a later time. Sitting in his small home made from Ravenala leaves, he told me:
I know I need to plant more clove trees, more vanilla vines. But it is a long time; many years for clove trees to produce. And for vanilla, too. It makes me tired—too tired.
Yet, only a few days later, I observed Francis and his wife going out into their fields, a basket of clove seedlings in hand.
‘Going to plant?’ I called to them.
‘Of course’, they answered back, adding: ‘You know, here in Imorona, we plant coffee, vanilla, and cloves.’
Entering the history record
As illustrated above, having a community of storytellers—and a community of listeners to stories—can provide important short-term resources to communities as they respond to climate change disturbances. More broadly, oral history accounts bring together individuals across generations to share their experiences both of the past and of the present in a way that opens up the historical record to include the evolving experiences of others. This process of bringing the past to bear on the present is an important facet of Malagasy culture, where people are not at ‘arm's length’ to history but ‘reconstitute it in their very being (Bloch, Reference Bloch1977; Lambek, Reference Lambek2002, p. 122).’ After the cyclone, the merging of past and present, of old and young, fashioned a moment when members of the community were presented with an entry point into the historical record. By adding their own experiences and voices to the community's collective memories, individuals connected their personal stories with the larger narrative legacies of Imorona. For example, Vola, a 13-yr old girl living in Imorona, approached me and asked if I could record her own account of the storm:
I can tell you about the cyclone. It was scary—I was scared—I stayed in my house—the house shook and shook. But we were ok. It was like the one back in ’59 but we didn't have flooding this time. We Malagasy mostly suffer when there is flooding…Now when I hear about the ’59 cyclone I can know all about it.
In such ways, people in Imorona repositioned their own relationships to collective history. Even as they listened to the stories of others, they were interpreting these stories through their own experiences. In this way, people emerged both as listeners—and tellers—of community history. This active interface with history, in turn, can strengthen the connections between individuals and communities: a bond that further builds a foundation of resilience (Basso, Reference Basso1996; Sloan, Reference Sloan2008).
Community resilience and pathways forward
Often, scholars report their concern that the knowledge contained in oral histories is becoming eroded over time (e.g., Janif et al., Reference Janif, Nunn, Geraghty, Aalbersberg, Thomas and Camailakeba2016). In contrast, my work in Imorona suggests that in certain places oral history knowledge may not be ‘eroding’ but rather that some facets of the oral history record remain dormant until a situation causes this knowledge to become more relevant, and hence increasingly visible (Basso, Reference Basso1996). In the case of Imorona, the Bingiza cyclone event revealed that there existed a rich body of oral history knowledge regarding community responses to past severe cyclones. Yet, I may have overlooked the extent of this oral history knowledge if I did not conduct field research during the weeks after the cyclone. This observation that environmental knowledge may be cyclical in nature suggests the need for climate change researchers to conduct qualitative research with communities over the long term, gathering oral history accounts at different points and in varying situations.
In addition to broadening the timeframe of oral history research, this case study illustrates the need to expand our very ideas of resilience. Often, measures of community resilience rely on quantitative data or on statistically derived comparative indexes (e.g., Cutter et al., Reference Cutter, Burton and Emrich2010). Yet, such models can be enhanced by including more qualitative measures of resilience (Hewitt, Reference Hewitt and Hewitt1983; Donovan, Reference Donovan2010). Foregrounding the qualitative measures that contribute to resilience may elucidate the proactive and more positive characteristics of communities that help to foster inter-generational connections and collective memory. Such an underscoring of community strengths, in turn, may balance out climate change discourses that tend to focus on vulnerabilities (Donovan, Reference Donovan2010; Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017).
Overall, integrating local oral history accounts of agrarian communities into climate change research can illustrate that it is not the hazard that defines a community, but rather the community that defines a hazard. My friend Francis reminded me of this idea during our conversation in the days following Bingiza. He was listing to me all of the trees and property he and others had lost in the storm. After each of his statements I responded, ‘that makes me sad to hear’. Finally he paused and looked at me. ‘You are sad too easily’, he said. ‘It isn't good to let the cyclone make you so sad. You need to remember: it is only a cyclone.’
The cyclone Bingiza
In the early morning hours of February 14, 2011, a category 3 cyclone struck Northeastern Madagascar, making landfall only kilometers away from the rural, coastal village of Imorona. Named Bingiza, the storm moved inland from the coast, destroying an estimated 80% of village homes, flooding rice fields, and damaging many of the clove trees and vanilla vines in the agroforestry fields that residents depend upon for income. Somewhat remarkably, the village of Imorona, along with the surrounding villages, reported no deaths caused by the cyclone.
One week after the storm, I traveled to Imorona—the site of my on-going cultural anthropology research. The majority of Imorona's approximately 2000 residents are smallholder farmers, who cultivate subsistence and market crops within diversified agroforestry landscapes (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017). Food crops in this region include hillside and paddy rice, breadfruit trees, cassava, fruit trees and sweet potatoes, while the main market crops are coffee, vanilla and cloves. In general, parents divide their land holdings equally among all of their children, and in some cases lineages have farmed the same parcels of land for more than eight generations. I first arrived to the village in 2005 as a Peace Corps volunteer, and later returned to conduct long-term anthropological research on the linked ecological, cultural and historical dimensions of these agro-ecological systems. Over my years working with this community, I had observed individuals face a variety of significant challenges, including a vanilla market crash, minor cyclones and a presidential coup.
Walking through Imorona with farmers in the aftermath of Bingiza, however, proved to be the most severe disruption to the community that I had yet to witness. I remained in the village for 5 weeks, and during this time I had a first-hand look at the effects of the storm. Working alongside smallholder farmers, I assisted with rebuilding thatched homes, clearing brush from agroforestry fields, and salvaging rice seedlings from damaged paddies. People were busy and focused, often working through the nights in their fields. On top of these repairs, people were active in community meetings, farmer association activities, and church groups. In these weeks, there was also a marked increase in the interest in oral histories, as people actively sought out the tales of the older people in town, especially regarding the infamous cyclone of 1959—to date, the most severe cyclone in living memory.
Below, I examine this prominence of oral history narratives in the wake of the storm, arguing that these narratives played not only important material roles in rebuilding local agricultural systems, but also useful symbolic roles as well (Lauer, Reference Lauer2012). In relating oral histories, people from across age groups, genders, religious affiliations and ancestral lineages gathered together. Such gatherings reconfirmed membership in a shared community and helped people connect their own situation with the larger record of collective memory. Overall, the increased interest in oral histories after the cyclone points to the cyclical nature of environmental knowledge, and suggests that in assessing community resilience one should not only focus on quantifiable measures, but also on the more qualitative realms of shared legacies, hope and belonging.
Oral histories and the study of climate change
In connecting oral history narratives with disaster recovery efforts, I build upon multidisciplinary research examining the social and cultural effects of climatic disturbances including volcanic eruptions, violent storms and sudden floods—the sorts of disruptions that are predicted to increase in scope and intensity with global climate change (Mendelsohn et al., Reference Mendelsohn, Dinar and Dalfelt2000). Collectively, this research argues that such disturbances should be understood not only as ‘natural’ climatic forces, but also as historically situated, socio-economic events (Hewitt, Reference Hewitt and Hewitt1983; Oliver-Smith, Reference Oliver-Smith1996). To better understand the coupled human-environmental systems of climate change, academics and practitioners have called for integrating multidisciplinary research that includes qualitative methodologies (Mercer et al., Reference Mercer, Dominey-Howes, Kelman and Lloyd2007; Crate, Reference Crate2011; Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Dove, Lahsen, Mathews, McElwee, McIntosh, Moore, O'Reilly, Orlove, Puri, Weiss and Yager2013).
Oral history narratives represent one such qualitative method. Oral histories, long used by scholars in the social sciences and the humanities, encourage individuals to render history in their own words, reflecting upon the connections between the present and the past by drawing from their unique perspectives (Cruikshank, Reference Cruikshank2001). Oral history narratives aim to record both the events of history, and how memories become encoded into the stories that people tell to themselves, and to others. Indeed, it is often the contextual details, narrative leaps and apparent contradictions that prove most fruitful to researchers interested in understanding how events of the past reverberate through the everyday lives of individuals (Dove, Reference Dove2008; Nightingale, Reference Nightingale2016).
These characteristics of oral histories make them well suited for climate change research on agrarian systems. First, oral histories may contain information that can assist agrarian communities prepare for and recover from the effects of climatic change, including by recording which food varieties can be successfully preserved, or which species act as emergency food sources (Mercer et al., Reference Mercer, Dominey-Howes, Kelman and Lloyd2007). Some research notes that memories passed along from previous hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions or storms, can foster more effective emergency responses (McAdoo et al., Reference McAdoo, Dengler, Prasetya and Titov2006). In addition, collecting oral history accounts immediately after a disaster occurrence has shown to provide a cathartic outlet for individuals, who use such narrative opportunities to process and categorize seemingly random and often-traumatic events (Cashman and Cronin, Reference Cashman and Cronin2008; Sloan, Reference Sloan2008). Finally, climate change narratives can reveal systematic inequities of class, race and gender (Enarson, Reference Enarson1998; Anderson, Reference Anderson2009).
In examining how Malagasy community members turned to oral history narratives following the Bingiza cyclone, I observed many of the themes outlined above. I also, however, noted additional ways that oral histories provided resources to Imorona residents not only through the information they conveyed, but also through the very process of their telling.
Telling the tale
When I arrived to Imorona a week after the storm, the night of the cyclone was naturally still very much on everyone's mind. While this region experiences cyclones relatively frequently, Bingiza was significantly stronger than the usual storms to hit the area. Nearly each person I encountered wanted to talk with me about Bingiza, how scared they were, how many clove trees they lost and what home damage they sustained. People with cows or pigs recounted how the animals wandered around the village after their pens blew away. People talked about moving from house to house throughout the night, and that by morning a dozen or more people would be huddled within each of the few houses still standing. People, they told me, were scared that they were going to die.
After this initial rush of telling, the overall tenor of conversations in the community shifted, becoming focused on the work of rebuilding homes and fields. People were acutely worried about the food shortages to come, as much of the rice crop was damaged by the storm. It was then I noticed village elders circulating in increased numbers among family dinner tables and community gatherings. Instead of being ignored—a common complaint I heard from elder community members during my previous years of research—elders were being sought out by the younger generations who seemed, at last, eager to hear their stories. There was one story in particular that residents wanted to hear: the story of the massive cyclone and subsequent flooding that occurred in Imorona in 1959. People asked to hear about the damage the storm caused, the effects on crops, what people ate to fend off starvation and if it was true that crocodiles came into town after the cyclone, carried by the flooded rivers. These accounts drew together a multi-generational audience that included young children, older teenagers, younger farmers and middle-aged men and women, often with children of their own.
As elders spoke, their narratives of past cyclones would touch upon other memories as well, including what crops people cultivated for food and for trade at various points in the village's history. These tales included agricultural advice for making it through storms. For example, people mentioned unconventional plant species that people ate after the 1959 storm, including the young leaves of the hasina plant (Draceana reflexa)—a revelation that elicited uncomfortable laughter from some younger members of the audience. Others noted that farmers used to cultivate cassava plants and other tuber species scattered within their agroforestry parcels, instead of employing the current technique of establishing small lowland cassava fields closer to town, which saves farmer labor, but leaves crops more vulnerable to flooding. In addition to such material advice, sharing memories served another purpose: it reminded people that they were part of a shared historical narrative, and that they therefore belonged to a community that had faced—and overcome—environmental challenges repeatedly in the past.
In these shared oral history narratives, agroforestry landscapes played a key role in creating a sense of collective memory and belonging. In Imorona, agroforestry fields are deeply connected to one's identity, as individuals strive to become skilled and careful farmers. This land stewardship, in turn, not only provides material resources to households, but also conveys respect for ancestral relationships (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017). Over the generations, these managed forests have proved incredibly resilient, withstanding repeated economic, social and ecological challenges. Indeed, people in this region refer to their agroforestry landscapes as voly maharitra, or ‘the land that lasts’ (Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017).
It is not surprising, then, that in the gatherings after Bingiza, elder residents looked towards agroforestry landscapes to convey a sense of collective history and responsibility. They noted, for example, that many of the productive clove trees that middle-aged farmers today harvested for income were originally planted after the 1959 cyclone. One such elder, for example, reminded her listeners:
After that storm, our clove trees, they were gone. Almost all gone. What did we do? We planted…We planted for our children. We were hungry—we ate hasina plants–we didn't even have salt! What did we do? We planted…Here, we plant coffee, vanilla, and cloves.
Over the short term, reminding people that previous generations overcame similar set-backs and continued to care for their fields provided motivation to younger farmers to replant clove trees, fruit trees and vanilla vines within their own agroforestry landscapes. This support proved especially useful 3 or 4 weeks following the cyclone, when the first major push to rebuild homes and to replant rice fields was completed, and people were left feeling drained. It was during this time that people contemplated the next major task on their list: replanting their hillside agroforestry fields. Many of the farmers I spoke with expressed weariness when faced with this endeavor—a task that required much effort, with benefits seen only after several years when the trees finally began producing fruits. Francis, the father of three young daughters, was one such individual tempted to leave the task of replanting trees to a later time. Sitting in his small home made from Ravenala leaves, he told me:
I know I need to plant more clove trees, more vanilla vines. But it is a long time; many years for clove trees to produce. And for vanilla, too. It makes me tired—too tired.
Yet, only a few days later, I observed Francis and his wife going out into their fields, a basket of clove seedlings in hand.
‘Going to plant?’ I called to them.
‘Of course’, they answered back, adding: ‘You know, here in Imorona, we plant coffee, vanilla, and cloves.’
Entering the history record
As illustrated above, having a community of storytellers—and a community of listeners to stories—can provide important short-term resources to communities as they respond to climate change disturbances. More broadly, oral history accounts bring together individuals across generations to share their experiences both of the past and of the present in a way that opens up the historical record to include the evolving experiences of others. This process of bringing the past to bear on the present is an important facet of Malagasy culture, where people are not at ‘arm's length’ to history but ‘reconstitute it in their very being (Bloch, Reference Bloch1977; Lambek, Reference Lambek2002, p. 122).’ After the cyclone, the merging of past and present, of old and young, fashioned a moment when members of the community were presented with an entry point into the historical record. By adding their own experiences and voices to the community's collective memories, individuals connected their personal stories with the larger narrative legacies of Imorona. For example, Vola, a 13-yr old girl living in Imorona, approached me and asked if I could record her own account of the storm:
I can tell you about the cyclone. It was scary—I was scared—I stayed in my house—the house shook and shook. But we were ok. It was like the one back in ’59 but we didn't have flooding this time. We Malagasy mostly suffer when there is flooding…Now when I hear about the ’59 cyclone I can know all about it.
In such ways, people in Imorona repositioned their own relationships to collective history. Even as they listened to the stories of others, they were interpreting these stories through their own experiences. In this way, people emerged both as listeners—and tellers—of community history. This active interface with history, in turn, can strengthen the connections between individuals and communities: a bond that further builds a foundation of resilience (Basso, Reference Basso1996; Sloan, Reference Sloan2008).
Community resilience and pathways forward
Often, scholars report their concern that the knowledge contained in oral histories is becoming eroded over time (e.g., Janif et al., Reference Janif, Nunn, Geraghty, Aalbersberg, Thomas and Camailakeba2016). In contrast, my work in Imorona suggests that in certain places oral history knowledge may not be ‘eroding’ but rather that some facets of the oral history record remain dormant until a situation causes this knowledge to become more relevant, and hence increasingly visible (Basso, Reference Basso1996). In the case of Imorona, the Bingiza cyclone event revealed that there existed a rich body of oral history knowledge regarding community responses to past severe cyclones. Yet, I may have overlooked the extent of this oral history knowledge if I did not conduct field research during the weeks after the cyclone. This observation that environmental knowledge may be cyclical in nature suggests the need for climate change researchers to conduct qualitative research with communities over the long term, gathering oral history accounts at different points and in varying situations.
In addition to broadening the timeframe of oral history research, this case study illustrates the need to expand our very ideas of resilience. Often, measures of community resilience rely on quantitative data or on statistically derived comparative indexes (e.g., Cutter et al., Reference Cutter, Burton and Emrich2010). Yet, such models can be enhanced by including more qualitative measures of resilience (Hewitt, Reference Hewitt and Hewitt1983; Donovan, Reference Donovan2010). Foregrounding the qualitative measures that contribute to resilience may elucidate the proactive and more positive characteristics of communities that help to foster inter-generational connections and collective memory. Such an underscoring of community strengths, in turn, may balance out climate change discourses that tend to focus on vulnerabilities (Donovan, Reference Donovan2010; Osterhoudt, Reference Osterhoudt2017).
Overall, integrating local oral history accounts of agrarian communities into climate change research can illustrate that it is not the hazard that defines a community, but rather the community that defines a hazard. My friend Francis reminded me of this idea during our conversation in the days following Bingiza. He was listing to me all of the trees and property he and others had lost in the storm. After each of his statements I responded, ‘that makes me sad to hear’. Finally he paused and looked at me. ‘You are sad too easily’, he said. ‘It isn't good to let the cyclone make you so sad. You need to remember: it is only a cyclone.’
Acknowledgements
I thank the members of the community of Imorona for the long-standing collaboration of this research. This work was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and a Fulbright-Hays fellowship. All names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals. This research was approved by the IRB review at Yale University.