Dealing with drought impacts would benefit from a stronger network of information and improved methods of transmitting a concise and less confusing message to stakeholders .The literature establishes the importance of access to health facilities, schools, markets, and town centers for reducing vulnerability and increasing agency. These locations possess resources that farmers and rural populations in general could not obtain on their own. However, resources availability does not guarantee accessibility. Long distances decrease access and increase vulnerability, especially in rural environments. Therefore, distance to resources has become an indicator in assessing vulnerability. Access to resources that will reduce vulnerability reveal a relationship with distance that reflects what geographers know as distance decay. This concept states that an activity or fieldwork that highlight the dangers of measuring distance just in absolute terms when assessing social vulnerability. If these concerns are not addressed, they can mislead vulnerability assessments and efforts to reduce social vulnerability. An understanding of the transportation system can partially explain challenges that Puno’s residents face when moving from point A to B. The region has many types of transportation options: aerial, railway, lacustrine, and terrestrial. Here, I do not discuss aerial, railway, and lacustrine modes in detail. A one-way ticket at the local airport ranges from $50 to $250, in a region with an average monthly income of $233 for the entire population . The railroad in the area, tailored for tourists,hydroponic table only goes to Cuzco and is not a mode of transportation used by locals in Puno. The lacustrine is the only mode of transportation for people living on the islands but is not widely used by others. Therefore, the mode of transportation available for our studied population is terrestrial.
Personal cars are available for transportation, but in many cases, people do not possess the income to own one. The most common mode of transportation outside urban centers is double deck buses or combis. A combi is a small white van that functions similarly to a bus; however, there are no established stops where people get on or off—stops are randomly dictated by passengers or drivers. Outside of urban areas or when traveling to other towns, the transportation follows a hierarchical network pattern. Combis usually connect from one node of importance to another of equal importance, which is challenging for people at places in between. People that do not live at one of these nodes need to walk in the direction they want to head and hope that one of the combis has enough space. Double deck buses—mainly for moving to other departments—have a schedule and might have space for new people, if their policies allow for people on the way to get on the bus. However, combis do not have schedules and leave when they are full, which does not allow new people to get on unless a person gets off before the combi’s destination. Following this hierarchy, the popularity rather than the distance to a destination determines the effort it will take to reach it. Consequently, many residents find themselves taking multiple combis to reach their towns. The arrival at a destination might depend on the time, day, and space availability. This problem is present for people traveling inside their municipalities as well as people traveling between municipalities. The role of mode of transportation is a clear example of the difference between relative and absolute distance, but there are other issues that are relevant as well. Having a health facility in the vicinity is considered to lower vulnerability, since it indicates access to health service. Rural populations may be more habituated to travelling longer distance for health care since they travel similar distances for other goods and services. However, even after traveling longer distances than their urban counterparts, their needs are not always met.
During my fieldwork campaign, many communities did not have access to health services even when a health facility was close in absolute terms. According to local information, a community was physically near a health facility. This facility had hours of operation written on the door, but the locals mentioned that they had never seen it open. This situation was repeated in many remote communities in the area; sometimes the fact that the land or other resource was owned at other levels in the hierarchy was cited as the reason for not opening them. Farmers mentioned that they need to walk hours, in some cases almost nine hours, to reach the next available facility . Once they reach that facility, its office hours were changed, and therefore it was closed. In other instances, the facilities did not have the proper staff or even medicines to help them properly. Many farmers complained of how it felt to walk sick to reach the facility and not finding it available or having the needed resources. Furthermore, the community lost trust in the facility when this situation kept happening. The reasons and responsibilities for this lack of resources or change in hours is outside the scope of this research. However, it provides a good example to warn us about the use of physical distance to a health facility by itself as an indicator of social vulnerability in this area. As with health facilities, proximity to an education facility is a proxy for access to education in many vulnerability assessments. However, several farmers pointed to the quality of the education in those facilities as a key concern. Many farmers—especially the women— expressed the view that education is more available in recent times, but that its quality is not good. They mentioned how its quality has even decreased in some instances. Schools that could provide better education are further away. Sometimes it does not help to encourage education because residents have seen that many with even higher levels of education struggle to find a job. Others mentioned that it does not provide useful information for their lives. The education, according to them, has no value since it does not provide any increase in income or any income at all. Evaluating the quality of rural education is complicated for residents due to numerous constraints and challenges. Many rural primary schools combine grade levels without proper guidelines on how pedagogically to deal with these consolidations, which hurts the quality of the education.
Challenges relating to distance to the school are present for the students, but also for the teacher that comes from far away. Many teachers live in the community only from Monday to Friday, and some respondents expressed concern that some teachers arrived late in the week and left early. And teachers that are eager to provide quality education encounter kids that haven’t eaten proper meals or education facilities that are not optimal. Furthermore,grow rack the system does not appear to offer a curriculum tailored to the needs of rural schools. Education above primary school is often found only in urban areas or areas far from the community where farmers reside. This further increases relative distance in terms of familiarity and security. Farmers mentioned unfamiliarity with the new school members as a reason for not wanting to travel the distance. Also, some students mentioned feeling unsafe walking to such schools. In some cases, this was due to unfamiliarity, but in other cases, it was due to strange males following them on the way to school. Therefore, although secondary school was reachable in terms of absolute distance, constraints added by fear and unfamiliarity made that distance relatively longer. A relationship defined on a set of individuals gives rise to a social network . Social networks act as channels for financial transfers, acquiring information about new technology, and enabling cooperation to overcome collective action dilemmas involving externalities . They are a critical component of social capital, but social vulnerability assessments often reduce social networks to just an asset. These assessments rarely study how social networks help members to cope with a crisis or find alternative livelihood strategies. Furthermore, treating social networks in a binary way—either you have one or you don’t—is problematic because the trust and access to resources they offer are unevenly distributed. A network can present benefits unequally to members, and different networks present different degrees of benefit. Farmers’ associations are social networks that benefit their members in numerous ways. According to locals, membership in farmers’ associations provides supplies, access to markets, training, technical consulting services, credit, access to water resources; however, some reported no benefits at all. Answers revealed that gender plays a role in the type of benefit obtained by members. During my fieldwork campaign, benefits were different for men and women in Puno. Men reported joining these types of associations mainly because of training and technical consulting services, followed by access to markets. In contrast, women reported joining them mainly to access water; after that, the most common response was that membership provided no benefits at all. It is intriguing that access to water is not among the top three benefits cited by men, but it was the top benefit for women. This raises questions, considering that both men and women cited water, followed by access to good seeds, as the primary barrier to increased crop production. Why do only women cite access to water as the association’s top benefit if water availability is of great concern to every farmer? I am unable to answer this question in this dissertation; however, the difference is an important example of how social networks have different effects as a function of gender. Other aspects of social vulnerability also show differences by gender. Women farmers, especially older ones, experience a loss of voice when they are in leadership positions.
Older women expressed that men do not listen to their opinions unless another male farmer repeats what they said. Therefore, women pass on their views with other women in a social network based on gender. Among younger generations, both females and male were able to express their opinions effectively to each other. Even then, voicing opinions and having leadership positions are not synonymous. Many women expressed theirlack of access to leadership positions as a barrier. Even if leadership positions are available to women, many do not dare pursue them. Some farmers mentioned, which I later confirmed to be true, the case of the struggle in 2014 involving the first woman elected as community leader. They commented that on International Women’s day, March 8th, almost 20 men locked her inside the office to demand her resignation. This outrage was provoked by the shame these men would feel in front of other communities if they let a woman be their boss. Numerous other examples provide insight into the leadership gender gap among rural populations in Puno. The level of social connectivity among rural women is considerably less than for their male counterparts. Therefore, gender plays a role in the number, type, and quality of connections available to rural populations. Another aspect of social networks that assessments often ignore is that of ethnic networks. Assessments record native language spoken and membership in minority groups as social vulnerability indicators. These are decent indicators, but their effects on vulnerability are more complex than merely membership in such groups, especially for Puno. The results from the latest agricultural census divided producers mainly into Quechuas and Aymaras . Three distinctive sub-regions can be observed in the region: Quechua areas ; Aymara areas ; and the rest of the provinces that combine both groups . The existence of these three sub-regions makes the role of ethnic networks and interactions more complex. The connectedness of members at different places needs to be understood in a region divided, almost evenly, between two ethnic groups but simultaneously having neighbors that could be either Aymara or Quechua . There is need to perform social network analysis concerning ethnicities and vulnerability. Does the location of the individual affect the strength of the ties with their ethnic networks? Do Quechuas received knowledge and assets from fellow Quechuas in Cuzco, or do they rely only on networks inside Puno? Do Aymaras exchange information and assets with fellow Aymaras across the Bolivian border, but only if they live near the border? Furthermore, how does the quality of agricultural knowledge, innovation, and other assets vary by ethnicity?