Nam, Willow & Jessica.
We will be taking a look at landscape through the lens of self-organization. More specifically, during our travel in Nepal, we will be looking for the physical evidence of self-organizing processes and human collaborations, with the aim of assessing the social capital within the community, as this is a key factor in building community resilience. Assuming that government support is limited in these villages and people rely mostly on themselves for their livelihoods, we expect that there will be various types of collaborations between farmers, business owners, and other groups to increase the social services within the community.
The collaboration between partners can be present both physically and socially. The physical aspects can be found by looking at which existing structures have been established and managed by the common people. This could be community forest area, informal irrigation networks or specific communal farming practices. The social aspects can be examined by noticing self-organization processes through the interactions, information sharing, and network creations of individuals and communities. We anticipate these social aspects will be manifested in the informal gathering of community groups to share information, informal markets, as well as informal livelihood supports structures.