Charlotte Potter
PhD Thesis/Project Title
Knowledge Systems, Land Use Change, and Food Sovereignty: a Comparative Study of Indigenous Knowledge Adaptation in the Peruvian Highlands and Northern Ontario
Charlotte’s research will examine how local knowledge systems transform alongside change in physical use, access and control of land, to assess the impact of multi-dimensional land disturbances (climate change, land displacement, deforestation, extraction) on social, cultural, economic and ecological systems. By understanding how Indigenous knowledge changes and evolves to reflect changing resources and contextual realities, she will investigate how local knowledge systems can uniquely support local community resilience, capacity, and food sovereignty. Highlighting the co-evolutionary nature of knowledge, adaptive indigenous strategies for meeting food security needs will be identified, as well as gaps or barriers that currently exist in knowledge, resources and capacity that can be filled with more focused policy, programming and future research.