Environmental Studies Professor Richard Peterson Uses Narrative Techniques to Illuminate His African Research

By Steve Price

petersonRichard Peterson likes the word conversation. To him it signifies much more that its vernacular meaning of "having a chat." He especially enjoys conversing with indigenous people of rural Africa. He speaks to them in their local languages of Lingala and Swahili, as well as in English and French.
 
He likes to talk to them about the mundane details and the driving forces of their lives-farming, families, jobs, politics, religion, philosophy, hunting, weather, health, life and death. From these conversations he seeks to better understand these peoples' complex relationship to the land. And then share with his Western scientific culture the values, lessons and insights he's learned, in hopes of helping to protect not only an ancient way of life, but one of the world's greatest natural resources: the African rainforest.

Peterson is an associate professor of environmental studies at UNE, though his path here has not been typical. To begin with, he's the child of American missionaries to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was born. He grew up with a brother and two sisters, living alternately in rural Africa and urban Michigan. His parents taught at and directed a number of Congolese and international schools, which he and his siblings attended. Peterson describes his parents' work as more educational than religious. His mother was a trained nurse; his father a teacher and minister.

Congo
peterson2Growing up in rural Congo, Peterson experienced nature firsthand. "I had every occasion to go out," he says. "There were no [modern] distractions, no TV." Although chagrined to admit it now, hunting was a big part of his life, helping the local farmers protect their gardens from ravaging guinea fowl and monkeys.

"That's where it started," Peterson relates. "I came to conservation science through the back door. My first spur was the nature all around us."

As a young man living stateside, he earned a degree in international studies from Michigan State University, focusing in anthropology, sociology and African Studies. He chose such training because of his strong interest in the social and cultural components of sustainable development work.

Narrative
"I've always been geared toward the human," he observes. And human communication. He says that he's energized by narrative, and sees it as a powerful bridge between the science of ecology, which he would study later, and the discipline of anthropology.

 "I thrive on the interdisciplinary, and on seeing the connections between disciplines. Literature, poetry and philosophy have always been important ways of knowing. I also find them a powerful means to gain knowledge about a social or ecological phenomenon," he says. This orientation would become the foundation for his research, writing and teaching.

After college, Peterson thought he would work with small NGOs (Non-Government Organizations), working on small-scale development projects. He was particularly interested in how these projects could be more "culturally sensitive," better integrated with the local culture and its impact.

A chance to return to the Congo and work at the school where his parents were teaching gave him the opportunity to travel widely across this huge, diverse country. In the Ituri Forest he met up with some friends who had just earned their Ph.D.s. and were beginning the first study of the okapi, a rainforest giraffe, in the wild. Peterson planned to stay two weeks and ended up staying two months, helping get the project off the ground. A subsequent job as a project manager for the Wildlife Conservation Society led to a study of wildlife behavior, followed by a study of human immigration into the rainforest.

Unlike most graduate school candidates, Peterson did his research first, then went to grad school. At the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin he earned both master's and doctoral degrees.

First Book
His Ph.D. dissertation was the basis of his first book, Conversations in the Rainforest: Cultures, Values, and the Environment in Central Africa. In the book, written for interested laypersons as well as fellow academics and students, Peterson (according to the flyleaf) "deftly interweaves the ideas of African and Africanist historians, philosophers, writers, and ecologists with a series of remarkable conversations he shared with the inhabitants of the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet, rather than remain in the background of his analysis, these conversations-on subjects ranging from the traditional interpretations of nature to contemporary indigenous perspectives on modern environmental challenges-constitute the very core of this book."

Published in 2000, the book represented Peterson's attempt to use narrative, the stories of the local people, to carry the gist of the work. "Not to forego analysis," he explains, "but to let the people's own words have a bigger place. Oftentimes those stories are not only very meaningful but very poignant."

He also felt the use of narrative would have more appeal to people outside of anthropology and ecology.

The work involved extensive interviews and participant observation with the people "working on the ground." Peterson operates on what academics term "radical empiricism"-using all of your senses, all of your experiences in fieldwork as data. Coming out of the anthropological tradition, this hands-on approach dictates that the scientist must be very much involved in the day-to-day activities of his subjects' lives, not a distant observer. Subjectivity and objectivity are equally important.

 
Colorful Conversations
peterson3The result can be measured by the book's many meaningful and colorful conversations, such as this dialogue, excerpted from a conversation with African farmers about ancient tribal laws dealing with wildlife management…

Peterson asks, "What were the reasons why the ancestors placed such laws? What was their purpose?"

"The reason is so that our children and our grandchildren, those who will be born after us, will not lack fish, so that they will also not lack animals," Libeka replies.

"Because you know, if we use them all up, those we will give birth to later will lack these things," adds Tambwe.

As if to indicate that something has gone wrong in the implementation of this ethic of concern for future generations (Peterson writes), Libeka poses the rhetorical question, "For today who is being deprived? They will not see elephants; they also won't see buffalo."

Yambo, a Ngombe farmer from the Likimi area to the south, agrees. "And others of our children will no longer know the names of some things."

African Rainforest
Wars, economic pressure, logging and farming practices, climate change and environmental disasters-all these and more are having a profound, and in most cases devastating impact on Africa's rainforest. Many believe that these unique regions are critical to understanding, if not sustaining, the planet's long-term environmental health. Not to mention the tens of millions of indigenous people, plants and animals that depend on the rain forests for their very survival.

Through his research, writing and teaching, Rick Peterson hopes to shed light on this critical subject. He is currently seeking project funds to further investigate various models of conservation and sustainable development. Not surprisingly, he's especially drawn to "community-based conservation." He wants to discover what lessons have been learned from other projects that have used such an approach, specifically in Eastern Africa, that might be transferable to other cases.

Peterson plans to return to the Congo for his research, because, he says, the "Congo is deep in my blood and soul." But for the time being, political instability makes long-term research there problematic. He also wants to learn from other areas of Africa and so has begun working with colleagues at Maseno University in western Kenya to investigate conservation models in that region.

Tumultuous History
Congo has a tumultuous history, tracing back to its Belgian colonial legacy, which culminated in Congo's independence in 1960. Only one year old, Peterson had to be evacuated from the country by the U.S. Air Force. He returned with his family in 1962, but had to leave for the Central African Republic when troubles erupted again in 1964.

But, according to Peterson, the turmoil of the 60s pales to what's happened in the country in recent years. The civil war that ravaged the Congo from 1998 to 2003 claimed some 3 million people, mostly from starvation and disease. The small fighting minority made it impossible for the country's ordinary citizens to live normal lives, isolating them from the gardens and farms that sustained them.

Peterson will return to the Congo this winter to revisit the area where he researched his book. He wants to see how five years of chaos and war have affected two case-study projects: a small-scale, integrated health and development project in the northwest, and a conservation project in the eastern part of the country.

In the meantime, Peterson is seeking ways to develop collaborative research and educational projects with UNE and Maseno University. Ideas include exchanging students, bringing African faculty members to UNE, and teaching a major course in Africa. More easily done are sharing research and sending textbooks.

Richard Peterson is an optimistic man, working in an environmental discipline that may well be critical to the survival of our species. He would like to glean the light of knowledge from an area too often described as the "heart of darkness." Then armed with that valuable, lucent knowledge, help illuminate other areas of the world as well.
    
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