America Nallely Lutz Ley Conference Summary

American Nallely Lutz Ley

Ph.D. Candidate
Arid Lands Resource Sciences GIDP

Conference Summary
2015 Conference of the Association of American Geographers (AAG)
Chicago, Illinois
April 21st to 25th, 2015

With presentations ranging from the geographies of human bodies to the intricacies of climate change at the global scale, expertise and collaboration emerged at the 2015 Conference of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) held in Chicago, Illinois, from April 21st to 25th, 2015.  I was one of the participants at this conference, which brought together thousands of people from both national and international settings. I came to the University of Arizona in 2012 to start my Ph.D program and study human adaptation to climate change in rural communities of arid watersheds in northwest Mexico. The research that I was co-presenting with one of my advisors –Dr. Stephanie Buechler- has the objective of better understanding the gendered decision-making of rural youth (15-29 years old) regarding their educational and employment options in the context of rapid environmental change in the arid community of Rayón, Sonora, Mexico.

While most of the academic and policy works regarding human adaptation are targeted to economically active population, our research has focused on the complexity of social-environmental interactions affecting youth’s decision-making in this arid rural community. In our ongoing work we are exploring: a) the nature of aspirations of rural youth; b) the effect that access to land and water has on their livelihoods; c) the agricultural job opportunities available for young men and women; and d) the potential effects of environmental change and current job opportunities on adaptation. We are particularly interested in observing how gender, age, and environmental and socio-economic changes interplay and affect those dynamics.

By attending and presenting this work at the AAG conference, I was able to see how other researchers have approached the issues of access to natural resources, environmental change, human adaptation, and environmental decision-making. The panel in which we participated had a full room, and we received interesting feedback and questions from colleagues working in similar topics across Africa and Latin America. Several things surprised me during my attendance: 1) the gendered nature of the gender environmental research (mostly women study women, men and women study the rest of topics, and men tend to integrate less in gender-focused research); 2) the increasing amount of energy and effort devoted to understand the social dimensions of adaptation, but also the growing complexity of approaches that makes them more specific and less suitable for integration; and 3) the little –but growing- attention that researchers are putting on the young generations’ capacities to adapt, even though they most probably will face the acutest effects of climate change.

I came back to Tucson full of new ideas regarding aridity and adaptation, with a renewed optimism in our abilities to work together and finding better and more equitable ways for improving human and ecosystem’s well-being, and with plenty of good memories of the very special city that is Chicago.  Thank you very much for this opportunity, and I hope more students can have such a great professional and personal experience as I did thanks to your support.

Sincerely,

America N. Lutz Ley.