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Dear Ron</div>
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There are dozens of stove-related questionaires. They are develop when we have a solid understanding of how the community functions and what the needs, risks and benefits are. </div>
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Cecil has a set of principles which guide his investigations. That is how anthropologists work. Once he has comprehensively understood the context, he writes a report. That report is used, usually by sociologists and technologists and program designers, to
develop a questionnaire which can be applied to the general population in the target region. </div>
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Until the community is understood, there isn't much point in drafting a questionnaire because one can only ask questions ýrelated to what one understands are 'issues'. </div>
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It is during the initial unrestricted investigation when one finds out about such things as why the floor under a Mongolian ger stove is kept very clean, or that the legs of a Kyrgyz heating stove must be tall enough for the cat to rest comfortably. </div>
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We don't learn much about a society by making assumptions that 'they are pretty much like everyone else.'</div>
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ýClose as they are, Thais and Indonesians don't much appreciate how the other cooks rice, nor what it is cooked in and the firepower used. A generic 'rice cooker' has only culturally limited market. After all, whose culture is 'generic'?</div>
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Regards </div>
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Crispin </div>
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<div>Cecil, list, Crispin:
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<div class="">
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>My conclusion on whether any stove-related questionnaires or reports by you are available is: “No”.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
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<div class="">Ron</div>
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<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On May 25, 2017, at 11:28 PM, Cecil Cook <<a href="mailto:cec1863@gmail.com" class="">cec1863@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Dear Ron and list,</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Something went wrong with my post to the bio-energy list. Here it is cleaned up. Excuse me! </div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">I do not typically use questionnaires when I work because I find that they tend to generate false data which often ýdoes not tell us about what stove users and operators hold dear to their hearts. So anthropologists do their best to
observe the behavior of stove users while operating their traditional stoves to heat their homes, cook food and perform other kinds of income generating work. My role is not one of asking questions. My role is to figure out what questions are foremost in the
minds of the stove operators and buyers and to gradually assemble an overview of what the stove using/buying public perceive to be important, what they most appreciate about their stoves or - what is the hierarchy of values which guide their judgments about
good or bad stoves. </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span><span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">So my methodology is to accompany stove users and households through a series of meals or discrete stove tasks which includes gathering, preparing and storing firewood, igniting and operating their stoves, dousing and turning off their
stoves (how is the retained heat of the stove used?). The timing and duration of discrete tasks may be critically important. </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span><span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">You notice what kind of biomass is used as fuel at different times of the year and how much work is involved in gathering and preparing these fuels, igniting them, and what kind of fire is produced. For example what is the ethnoscience
of stove users about different kinds of biomass? What are the preferred fuels for particular stove tasks and you ask the stove operator to explain his or her fuel preferences in situ while face to face with a traditional stove</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">So, not to waste time on the obvious, stove ethnographers try to discover what stove functions and performances are considered to be mandatory (and why these particular stove functions and attributes are demanded
or preferred). Once these perceptions and preferences are understood from the perspectives of different types of stove users - or the perspectives of the stove buyers, fuel gathers and preparers, stove makers, or stove sellers, then it becomes possible to
construct a questionnaire that asks meaningful questions from the perspective of these different role players within the dominant stove - user- fuel - fabricator system(s).ý<br/><br/>I have only been hired by GIZ, WB, UNDP, etc for short periods of time to
reconnoiter the domain of stoves and the many different tasks that stoves are called upon to perform. I used those brief periods when functioning as a stove anthropologist to advise Crispin about what I observed stove operators doing in kitchens, houses,
kiosks and pushcarts, small restaurants, etc. And remember I was trying to piece together a very provisional overview of "culture" of stoves which embodies (1) Foods and cooking, (2) Family context, (3) Fuels & Forests and (4) Fabrication (the
4 F's) . I decided my job was to understand the perceptions and performance preferences of "indigenous" stove users and to communicate their expectations and demands to the stove developers and fabricators, testers, funders, standard setters, and strategists. </div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">It is obvious I have not pushed the boulder very far up the hill - thinking here of the punishment of Sisyphus - and I admit to my several short comings as a stove anthropologist but it is not my fault that I have never been offered
an opportunity to carry out enough ethnographic field work in a particular stove culture and system to understand its integrating patterns and most powerful drivers. But for better or worse I have been privileged to work closely with one exceptionally receptive
stove innovator who understood the importance of permitting the stove using public to tell stove engineers and testers and funding agents and economists and air quality experts what stove-fuel performance functions they want from their stoves! </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span><span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">Like you Ron I am old and drooping in my saddle so the best use of my limited time is probably to work closely with the younger generation of stove experts to encourage them to realize that culture "trumps" technology ever
time and therefore the first step on the path to innovating a better stove requires developers to discover what targeted stove users and customers identify as non-negotiable performance characteristics of a traditional stove. That is the starting point. </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">My contribution is to encourage stovers to deeply appreciate what the users of traditional stoves demand from their stoves. Once you have teased out the functional preferences of the stove using/buying public
you want to serve (what size is the cooking surface and pot holes, what is the preferred height off the ground, what are the main dishes cooked and in what cooking vessels and what are the range of different fuels used for cooking and stove work at different
seasons, and how long does a traditional stove last, how much does it cost, etc) then you know what the challenge is. If you can introduce additional benefits like faster cooking, smoke reduction, less fuel collection or lower expenditures on fuels, cell phone
charging and led lighting, warmer indoor temperatures less inside pollution, water heating, additional cooking or stove work functions, greater durability, reduced clean up work, etc then such innovation will surely speed up the displacement of the traditionally
dominant & "old faithful" stoves. </div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">To repeat: all the stove anthropologist does is appreciate the many ways old stove are integral parts of old cultural systems and environments and encourage stove users to truthfully communicate the performances
they demand from their traditionally dominant stoves. What are the customers' non negotiable expectations of the dominant stove? The aim of stove anthropology is to discover what are the deep questions stove users ask about any and all candidate improved stoves.
The question is the question! It is not the questions asked by the anthropologist that count. It is the questions asked by the end user and stove customer that count! At his best the anthropologist is a scribe who translates the preferences and demands of
the indigenes into the languages of the modernizers and globalizers. Stove speak mostly speak local cultural languages! </div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">In search and service,</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Cecil the Cook</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">From: Ronal W. Larson. Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 7:17 PM </div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">To: Discussion of biomass; Cecil Cook Cc: Nigel Pemberton-Pigott; Gosia (Biczyk) Malgorzata CIM-IF KG; Laurent Durix; Nikhil Desai; Xavier Brandao; Harold Annegarn<</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">Subject: Re: [Stoves] Leaping about<br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">List and ccs</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">It would be a big help to this list to see the stove questionnaires and reports you produced. Are they available to this list?</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Ron</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 23, 2017, at 2:16 PM, <a href="mailto:cec1863@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">cec1863@gmail.com</a> wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Dear stovers, CPP's remarks have reminded me Subject that anthropologists deserve to be given equal standing with physical scientists, engineers, air quality experts, earth first environmentalists, gender rights
advocatesý (feminists?), result based economist, and energy policy wonks when it comes to assessing performance of baseline stoves and figuring out what stove innovations are most likely to be well received and adopted by particular communities of stoves users,
Anthropologists are almost essential when it comes to understanding the subtle dynamics of communities and households where biomass and/or coal stoves are widely used and often preferred - sometimes alone or together with electricity, LPG, kerosene, or even
locally sourced renewable energies to perform cooking, heating, and many other agricultural and income generating functions. </div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">The unknown question for me is who is willing to listený to me when I try to act as an advocate for different categories of the stove using public or when I have been hired as a member of a team which is composed of mostly western educated
urban residing, upper middle class techno-centric professionals. Such professionals typically know best what needs to be done to promote improved stoves in particular target markets! When such professionals are hired to advise USAID, the WB, GIZ, DFID, etc.
about what technological improvements should be considered, innovated, tested and incorporated into improved stoves for X, Y, or Z stove using publics it is my experience that we all have trouble listening to each other and we do not understand the stove culture
and stove use practices of the target populations.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">My position as an over the hill anthropologist is that in the end the indigenous stove makers, users/operators, fabricatorsý, sellers, and buyers of the world will have the last word on what kind of stoves they
will welcome into their homes and communities. This stove list like the WB and USAID and most other stove development agencies is obviously stove technology centered. One must speak the language of the physical, natural and biological sciences to have standing
in these discussions. People like myself who pay more attention to the cultural, social, economic and environmental functions of both traditional stoves or are asked to evaluate innovative stoves typically concentrate on the cultural matrix generated by the
food, fuel/forest, fabrication,and family parameters (the 4 F's) of stove performance. Any proposed advance in stove hardware has to improve a candidate stove enough to substantially out perform the traditional stoves with respect to the 4 F's. Stove "techies"
who apparently constitute the bulk of the members on the bioenergy list are not that interested in ýthe cultural and operator variables which are prerequisites for widespread uptake and quick adoption from the customers' point of view. Tragically, the stove
customer is not a king. He or she is a subsidized "peon" who will receive the modern stove that we teckies and members of the cosmopolitan professorate deem to be the best for the:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">1). world carbon balance,</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">2) the local and regional health of family and community,</div>
</span><span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">3) the bio-dynamic health of the local and regional eco-system, and</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">4) the long term well being of the global economy,</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">The pre-modern small scale and pre-industrial economies of the planet must be coercively straight-jacketed into the Euro American conception of modernity. And let's face it folks there are so many other wonderful
way to be modern, most of them unexplored and "beckoning". For some strange reason Crispin takes my stove culture centered readings of village and urban stove users in Mozambique, Malawi, the DRC, Zambia, Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana, Xhosaland, Mongolia,
Indonesia and Cambodia SERIOUSLY even when the technologists, economists and the politicos promising & "happy days are here again" or just around the next corner do not want to take the time to understand the sophisticated systems of food, fuel/forest, fabrication,
and family institutions of values, symbols, skills, ethno-sciences, and </div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote">interdependence which such systems represent. </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">From my perspective, it's the 4 F system that we must understand more than the stove technology. But what I do I know? I don't seem to fit into the WB's knowledge system and administrative processes very well
or at all. So it is better for me to wait and watch patiently from the sidelines and to have off the record conversations with Crispin.Come to think of it thank you Crispin for listening to a backslide applied stove anthropologist. It has been a pleasure being
part of your stove culture and ethno-science team.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">In search & service, </div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Cecil Cook</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.<br/>> Original Message <br/>> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott<br/>> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 10:03 AM<br/>> To: 'Stoves (<a href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank" class="">stoves@lists.bioenergylists.o<wbr class="">rg</a>)'<br/>>
Reply To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves<br/>> Subject: [Stoves] Leaping about<br/>> <br/>> Dear Improved Biomass Stove Fans<br/>> <br/>> From<br/>> <br/>> LPG fuel subsidies in Latin America and the use of solid fuels to cook<br/>>
Karin Troncoso, Agnes Soar</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">es da Silva (Energy Policy 107 (2017) 188-196)<br/>> Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization, 525 23 St. NW., Washington, DC 20037, USA; </div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">“In Mexico, despite the fact that most of the population has physical access to LPG, it has been documented that some people stop using LPG once they have an improved biomass stove (Masera et al., 2005; Berrueta
et al., 2007). From a health perspective, this is a leap backwards.” While the sources are a little dated now, the fact that people switch to biomass once it is made ‘acceptable’ is valuable information. I think it is a bit of a leap (false statement) to say
‘it is a leap backwards’. The ‘energy ladder’ is an abstract construct that exists in the minds of the Development Set.</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">First, there is no field assessment included in the statement that ‘health was negatively affected’ by using an improved biomass stove. In most cases the improvement includes a chimney, not so? Aren’t these 100% improved plancha stoves
with a chimney? If all the ‘emissions’ are put out side, then the health impact between using LPG in an unventilated kitchen and wood fuel in a ventilated on are probably comparable (anyone have measurements?).</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"> Second, there is nothing ‘backward’ about biomass as a fuel. There are some bass-ackwards implementations of burning it, but deprecating an entire fuel class?? We can do a lot better than that. So the old saw
about ‘solid fuels cannot be burned cleanly enough to provide health benefits’ is once again on our table. Where does this nonsense come from? Who is sustaining this nonsense? In whose interest is this nonsense repeated and repeated as if it was true?</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">There has to be some accountability. If measurements are not accompanied by uncertainties, and claims are not based on measurements, there should be no expectation that funding will follow.There is another aspect
of this whole ‘cooking’ thing which is that many populations do not consider heating water to be ‘cooking’. A stove that is used to cook and heat water and heat the living space is a triple-function device, not doing double-duty. The separation of cooking
from water heating is very obvious in many kitchens. I will be making a point of this in Warsaw. For stoves to be acceptable they have to perform the expected functions.</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">Famously the 2011 (?) national census in Indonesia asked the question, “What is you main cooking fuel” and 40% selected ‘biomass’ as the answer. Another 40% marked, ‘LPG’ and the rest chose ‘kerosene’ or ‘electricity’. What this single
question did not unearth (but the stove anthropologist Cecil Cook did) is that 70% of that first 40% use LPG some of the time for cooking food or making tea (a cooking function and a water heating function), and 70% of the LPG users heat water with wood. Wow!</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">So 68% of the population uses biomass to heat water, not counting those using electricity and kerosene for cooking who were not asked about their wood fuel use. Certainly the total is above 75% using biomass.
Is all biomass fuel use a step backwards? Asked why the use wood, the universal answer is, ‘to save money.’ Is saving money always a step backwards? If fuel costs more is it a step forwards?</div>
<span class="gmail-im" style="font-size:12.8px">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br class="">
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<div class="gmail_quote">There seems to be a smidgeon of arrogance in this matter of who is moving backwards.</div>
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</div>
</span>
<div class="gmail_quote" style="font-size:12.8px">Regards Crispin ______________________________<wbr class="">_________________</div>
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