Analyzing an Article

Title of the Article: Farmer perception of land degradation and land quality in the Pindar’s River

Sub-watershed, Clarendon, Jamaica.

 Author(s) of the Article: Bailey, S.

 Publication Date: 2003

 Publication Source (Journal, Volume & Number): Caribbean Geography 13 (2):130-144.

Name:

GEA 3320

Fall 2018

Date Submitted:

 

 

Introduction

The article treats tourism in Dominica as a part of a wider research of how the people in Dominica relate to their nature. It also assesses how they conceive of their nature and how they recognize nature, how nature came to exist, the role it plays in their lives as well as their attitudes towards it. The article, therefore, presents arguments and discussions that show how the Dominicans interpret and understand nature because of their interaction and co-presence within it as they interact with it.

The interest of the author is on the actual interaction of individuals with nature as they associate on a day-to-day basis with nature at a personal level. Moreover, the research involves the attention of the manner in which individuals encounter and engage, giving consideration not only to how individuals make sense of nature, but also they use their personal senses to perceive or rather interpret the nature they live within. It is a very noble approach taken by the researcher to get an in-depth understanding of the perception of individuals on nature and the environment around the Caribbean, which investigates perception in line with the cognitive constructs. For example, it interprets perceptions in line with awareness, justification, memory, understanding, and knowledge. According to the author, it is important to focus on mental insights and the thinking processes and thinking the process in place of embodied sensory impressions. It draws on the expanded definition of perception including sensation and cognition and that allows for the analysis of how the sensual and the intellectual giving people a sense of the world that they exist.

The introduction frames the coming argument as inspired by the interactions and the personal experiences of the people of Dominica. The author seeks to use the research to give the perception of the individuals, following their interaction on a day-to-day basis with the nature around them and the perception that they from because of the interaction. The author also goes ahead to give documentation and an in-depth description of the Island regarding size and highlighting the facts known about Dominica. It addresses the economic, agricultural, and other aspects that help in shaping the article’s analysis since the overview directs the focus of the people’s perception. It is because, people’s attitudes are formed as a result of their interaction with the day-to-day activities and the external environment that they live in and interact.

Argument

The researcher gives an overview of the researches conducted on tourism and nature and indicates a gap in the studies conducted indicating that there is an insufficiency in the academic dialogues about nature and tourism and its consequences for the local people, their communities, and their environment. According to the article, there is a scarcity of the empirical investigations into the perception residents of ecotourism destinations and their values and ways of thinking. There is, however, some research on the resident’s involvement in perceptions and of the attitudes to nature tourism and that some reports of how the habitual nature related practices such as those of farming, fishing, harvesting, and hunting were affected because of the introduction of the tourism to the nature that they engage in the socio-economic activities. There has been insufficient empirical information that indicate how the people take it or rather conceive, interact with and behave e towards the tourism in the destinations.

Structure of the Paper

The author begins by outlining the objectives of the research. In the section as they shown the objectives, it gives an outline of the interaction and a case scenario of the kind of interaction that people have with nature as they engage in tourism. He uses semi-structured interviews with the practitioners and the policy makers in the tourism industry within Dominica as well as the engagement in the nature tours so as to have the first-hand observation of some of the interactions that individuals have. The observations are done through guided tours of the tourist destinations.

The article, however, present, more of the data that was gathered through the direct observations as the researcher engages in guided tours of some often destinations and witnesses the first-hand interaction of the Dominicans to the tourism industry. It forces more on the sensory aspects of the people’s perceptions of nature than on the cognitive aspect of it. The observations were obtained majorly from observant participants that took part in two guided tours of nature. One of the tours was a bus tour that included a stop and a swim at the Ti Tou Gorge; that is close to the Village of Laudat. The second tour was an aerial tour, whereby the participants were transported through the rainforest canopy of the suspended gondolas, which was at a site in the vicinity of Laudat.

The presentation of the data obtained for further discussions noted in field notes. The first tour is therefore presented in the author’s field notes and the second through brief transcripted excerpts of a video recording. The video recording and the field notes are the principal methods of data collection the author sued and hence can get an opportunity to review them later to understand the perception and the reactions that individuals had following a direct interaction with nature.

The analysis and the structuring of the argument begin with a focus on the ways that tourists involves the bodily practice and that it provides a starting point for discussion of how the bodily practices of the tourism may constitute the relationship that individuals have with nature. With the Ti Tou Gorge swim, it offered a sense of total immersion into the world of nature. For much of the tour the researcher ensured that there was full body contact with the water in the Gorge, with only the swimsuits and the flotation devices that they wore. The author also presents the personal experience e and sensations resulting from being involved and engaged in the tour and the study in the field.

Literatures

The author focuses on literature that documents research conducted about tourism, nature, and the academic dialogues about nature and tourism and its consequences for the local people. The author further analyzes the studies that offer the in-depth understanding and perception of the individuals because of their interaction with the environment as tourism occurs. It gives a detailed analysis of literature that provide the information on embodied practices of tourism and also how they shape the people’s knowledge of the place as well as the understanding of the existing relationship between the individual and the world. However, the researcher analyzes the studies on whether they focus on the tourist or the local people and the impact that result from the interaction with nature.

The researcher further examines the non-representational theory that amalgamates the embodiment of the daily occurrences in human geography that inspires the research and the studies that the researcher takes up in the literature review section. The author, therefore, goes ahead top site books, scholarly articles, journals and other past studies fitting the criteria of the literature review that they need to make the argument and draw an inference on the research that they are conducting.

Methodology

The method used by the researcher is the semi-structured interviews and direct observations. The researcher uses the semi-structured interview for the practitioners and the tourist in the area to collect information on their view and perspectives on the interaction with nature as they engage in tourism. The researcher uses the semi-structured interviews to leave the room for more input by just having a theme of what they plan to ask and hence a theme guides the interview but the responses of the residents are what direct it. It offers the researcher an opportunity to engage the interviewees on their perspectives and get the personal experiences and input of their interaction with the environment. It was a crucial tool for the practitioners and the tourist.

The researcher then uses the observations through engaging in the tours and having the participants that are carefully selected take part in the tours are guided. It is crucial that they have an immersion into nature and then the researcher notes down, observes the kind of reactions, and inputs they-they have in the process of relating to nature. It was a crucial tool for getting to understand the way that nature shapes the perception of individuals as they engage in it. The tours involved the actual interaction with nature with the first tour requiring a stop and a swim at the Ti Tou Gorge, which is close to the Village of Laudat. The second tour was the aerial tour, whereby the participants transported through the rainforest canopy of the suspended gondolas, which was at a site in the vicinity of Laudat.

The data collected is noted down by the research her through the collection of points as they engage in observation as the participants take part in the tours. The points are crucial for referencing later as they draw a conclusion or make findings of the research. There is a video of the participants as they engage in nature that offers an opportunity to transcribe it for later referral in drawing a conclusion. The interviews are analyzed and serve as the sources of data that is analyzed and used to draw a conclusion. The data is presented in the text of the article by examining and relying on the notes and the video transcription. The data can comfortably support the conclusion and the conducting of the research to draw a conclusion as it indicates the qualitative needed data.

Conclusion

The author concludes the article by making clarifications on the intentions of the article and then indicating the implication that it is bound to have the broader perspective. It indicates that the research has been able to shift the attention of focus from the posited meaning towards a more material composition and conduct approach of nature tourism. The author goes ahead to emphasize that they are not rejecting the wider socio-cultural context influences to their research topic. The author goes ahead to stress the need for close attention to the details of actual tourism practices at the local level, insisting that there is much to be learned and hence presents an area that should be studied further in the future.

Bibliography

The author uses 32 sources to reference the research work. There are seven books cited, 23 journal articles, and two past research papers relevant to the study that the author uses in the study. The author uses the Bibliography to support the ideas that they present and to build a literature surrounding and supporting the research that they are conducting.