Category: Updates

Jeremiah Asaka, Coasts and Communities fellow from Cohort 2014, is conducting his field work in the northern rangelands of Kenya in summer 2016. Here, he is preparing to hold a focus group discussion with a group of Samburu warriors under an acacia tree.

In Kenya, he is hosted by the University of Nairobi (http://www.uonbi.ac.ke) under the supervision of Prof. Alice Oluoko-Odingo of the Institution’s Geography and Environmental Studies Department (http://geography.uonbi.ac.ke). She also serves as an external member of Jeremiah’s dissertation committee. Prof. Tim Shaw is the chair of the dissertation committee, which includes Prof. Jane Parpart and Prof. Heidi Gengenbach as members.

Jeremiah’s fieldwork in Kenya is funded by UMass Boston’s National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (https://www.umb.edu/igert) fellowship. University of Nairobi is a partner institution of the IGERT program. Jeremiah’s fieldwork in Kenya is primarily for local level data collection. Afterwards, he will embark on global level data collection as he is interested in understanding the human security implications of transformations in conservation governance for conservation area communities.