Cultural domain analysis: A toolbox for collaborative research design for climate action

Cultural Domain Analysis (CDA) is a tool developed to elicit the contents of particular cultural domains of interest to a community (e.g. pasture, forage or livestock diseases), explore how these items are related in local classifications, and determine their economic and cultural importance. It reveals depth of individual knowledge, identifies shared knowledge, variation among respondents, shows classification structure through pile sorting, and distinguishes core and peripheral items based on salience scores. The process begins with free listing to elicit domain items and understand local definitions, followed by pile sorting to group items based on similarity, and finally ranking to determine relative importance. CDA uses open-ended questions, encourages local terms, and relies on participatory engagement. It supports identification of culturally relevant knowledge and links between local and scientific categories. CDA is cost-effective and flexible, and requires careful facilitation, local language use, and culturally sensitive approaches to ensure accurate data collection and interpretation.