Small drones for geo-ethnographic research in environmental conflicts

Keywords: environmental geography, ethnography, political ecology, remotely piloted aircraft systems RPAS
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 49

Abstract

Researching environmental conflicts can be a challenging endeavor when many actors and territorialities are involved. In this paper we explore the potential of small drones –as excuses and tools– to gather helpful geo-ethnographic information to comprehend environmental conflicts complexity from an activist research design. Based in our case study of La Mintzita environmental conflict (central Mexico), we show how we used small drones as a key tool for geo-ethnography, participatory mapping, and remote sensing. Building on our case study, we propose and test a research design for using small drones to do geo-ethnographic research before take-off, during flights and after landing. We discuss the ethical and political concerns of our methodological proposal, explaining how our research design dealt with them. Our case study illustrates the power and influence that can be exerted by the aerial perspective offered by small drones. Such power, however, entailed a great responsibility, and therefore we think that is paramount to attend to ethical principles and regulations to safeguard privacy and rights of involved people –directly and indirectly– when using small drones for geo-ethnographic research in environmental conflicts, or in other situations. We argue that whether geo-ethnographic small drones use is or not Human Subjects Research will depend on each research design. Finally, we highlight the future research that is needed to explore the geo-ethnographic potential of small drones, both inside and outside of environmental conflicts research.