Digital Commons Network^™

Repair Rolodex: Exchanges, Changes, And Patchwork Parables, Ethan Howard

Masters Theses

This book is an index of nine exchanges with strangers whom I met online through email Listservs or by word of mouth. In these transactions, I offered to repair broken things for a trade-in-kind payment. Through the brief relationship between owner and designer, each interaction suggests that an object is almost never entirely obsolete despite its perceived obsolescence.

At the core of these trades is a grassroots protest of the landfill and a critique of our global capitalist commerce system. The apparent desire for and nature of these trades demonstrates that stories make our objects meaningful. Each interplay studies peoples’ …

Mind, Body, And Farmland: The Agricultural Revolution Of Regenerative Agriculture And The Social Construction Of Sustainability., Amanda C. Pennett

Honors Theses

An agricultural revolution has begun to take place in light of the growing awareness of environmental issues that impact crop production on farms. In the beginning of the fall of 2022, I began to study the culture of regenerative agriculture in rural Pennsylvania using anthropological methods, including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, working alongside local farmers. I was also interested in uncovering the flaws in our current industrial agricultural system and how farming could be reimagined to benefit farmers’ mental health, soils, and ecosystems while privileging the voices of those farmers committed to regenerative farming. The ongoing evolution of regenerative farming …

The Demotechnic Index Of Nations, 1980-2018, Camden Rainwater

Geosciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Demotechnic Index (DI) is a non-dimensional metric that is the scalar multiple of energy consumption over and above that required for mere subsistence of a national population. Thus, the DI is a measure of energy efficiency that scales a country’s industrial energy consumption (called the total technological energy) and the energy required to meet the metabolic demand of the population (called the total metabolic energy). The DI was created by scientist John Vallentyne in 1982, refined in 1994, but never gained popularity or wide use as a sustainability metric. The objective of this thesis was to re-evaluate the DI …

Avocado Mania: The Rise And Costs Of Our Obsession With Avocados, Rosa C. Lourentzatos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The past two decades have seen a surge in global demand for avocados, which have become popular among middle- and high-income fractions of society in developed regions of the world. Avocados are predominantly consumed far from their centers of origin and out of their traditional cultural context. The United States imports 87 percent of its avocados from a single region in Mexico, Michoacán. The systems of production and provision that have risen to meet the demand for this fashionable fruit have had devastating social and environmental effects, including deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, pollution, displacement of indigenous populations, food insecurity, …

Mapping The Suitability Of Cal Poly's Insulated Solar Electric Cookers (Isec) In Ghana, Togo, And Jamaica, Julia G. Kraatz

Social Sciences

The World Health Organization estimates that 3 billion people depend on biomass fuels for cooking, heating, and other day-to-day activities, which causes approximately 4.3 million people annually to die from illnesses attributable to indoor air pollution. The issue is especially pressing for women and children in developing countries, because women care for the home and are consequently responsible for attaining household fuels and cooking. In 2015, ISECs (Insulated Solar Electric Cookers) were developed at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, as a technology that utilizes solar electricity to directly cook food in a well-insulated chamber. They are capable of …

"Airbnb Go Home:" Tourism Frictions And Short-Term Rentals In New Orleans, Madeline R. Fussell

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the concerns and conflicts around short-term rental (STR) properties in New Orleans neighborhoods. Using data from collected from critical discourse analysis, semi-structured interviews and social media posts, this paper analyzes the ways the city of New Orleans, residents of the city, STR hosts, and platforms like Airbnb discuss issues of safety, displacement, rising costs of living, as well as responsible STR practices. To understand the complexities of the issues people, have with short-term rental properties, this project approaches STRs from a housing and gentrification lens to understand the role these properties play within in the daily atmospheres …

Save Water Drink Wine: Challenges Of Implementing The Ethnography Of The Temecula Valley Wine Industry Into Food-Energy-Water Nexus Decision-Making, Zaida E. Darley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study demonstrates the interrelationships of people, food, energy, and water associated with Temecula Valley’s wine industry and reveals contradictions and biases in how people view these resources, which ultimately shape management and policies. The FEW (Food, Energy, and Water) Nexus is an approach increasingly used by policy- and decision-makers to understand the interrelationship of several resources. However, a FEW Nexus approach often lacks in social aspects that influence environmentally and economically sustainable outcomes, especially in the wine and wine tourism industry. When quantitative and qualitative data are available, the other challenge is which assessment to use. Two assessments often …

Vulnerable Agents: Ugandan Children's Experiences With Hiv Rehabilitation And Reintegration, Colleen Walsh Lang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Paths, Cailin Flores Drew-Morin

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Climate Change And Threatened Heritage: Archaeology's Burden, Barry R. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Climate change and archaeology are currently intertwined, as more and more archaeologists around the world must deal with the effects it causes on the sites they work on. Threatened cultural resource sites are being swept away at alarming rates, and excavation projects are becoming more and more like salvage digs.

Virtuous Discourse In The Specialty Coffee Sector: How Social Responsibility Practices Fragment Pursuits For A Supply Chain, Jane H. Motsinger

Geography ETDs

A diversity of public and private initiatives strive to address the human-environment challenges confronting the global coffee industry, including certifications like Fairtrade, direct trade sourcing models, and efforts led by NGOs. Research examines the outcomes of major certification programs and the private initiatives of corporations like Starbucks. Much less is known about the business practices of the small specialty coffee businesses that increasingly advertise sustainable business practices. Yet, their collective business practices likely influence the industry-wide efforts to achieve a sustainable supply chain. This research examines how small specialty coffee roasting and importing companies represent their socially responsible business practices …

Paese Di Accoglienza: Il Successo Di Un Modello Innovativo Di Accoglienza Dei Richiedenti Asilo In Italia, Isabela Arena Secanechia

Senior Capstone Theses

This work discusses Italy's migrant reception system including its flaws and their effects. Furthermore, this work explores an alternative, sustainable model of migrant reception created in Riace, Calabria, that has been successful in varying towns across Italy. Ultimately, this work argues that this system, which is beneficial to both Italians and incoming migrants — specifically asylum seekers — can and should be implemented nationally to counter the current flawed system.

E-Waste In Relation To Geopolitical Forces: A Case Study Of The United States - Mexico Border Region, Michael A. Hicks

Theses and Dissertations

Analysis deconstructs the electronic waste industry and its interconnectedness to geopolitical forces and economic development in the border region between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. A symbiotic business relationship exists between informal e-waste collectors, non-profit collection sites, and for-profit recyclers. Fieldwork data is analyzed from a slow/structural violence perspective.

The Culture Of Sustainability At Southern Miss, Amy J. Ball

Honors Theses

The sustainability movement has been studied in general before, but little research has been done on topic of the sustainability movement at universities. This study aims to contribute to the larger conversation on sustainability by looking at the ideas and motivations behind participation in the movement among students at the University of Southern Mississippi. This is done primarily through interviews performed by the researcher with a number of students in a club on campus dedicated to spreading knowledge of and participation in sustainable activities, known as the Sustainability Advocates. Background information about the sustainability movement on campus is provided by …

Trash Talk: Understanding Food Waste At A Charter Elementary School In Florida, Steven A. Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Waste as a topic for anthropological investigation has enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest, mirroring burgeoning discussion among policy-makers and the general public about questions of environmental impacts, economic costs, and social detriments of contemporary waste management paradigms. While waste management in the United States has largely focused on technical and organizational solutions typically considered the domain of environmental planning and engineering (such as source reduction, recycling, and reuse), anthropology and the social sciences have become more prominently involved in efforts to inform policy-makers and researchers about the social and behavioral factors influencing waste norms and habits, particularly in educational …

School Gardens: Cultivating A Child’S Nutritional Habits, Environmental Knowledge, And Sustainability Practices, Jeffrey Meltzer

Honors Theses

School gardens have existed since the late nineteenth century and today are becoming increasingly popular in many parts of the world, including where I studied in Maine and Australia (AUS). Multiple organizations support school gardens in Maine, including the Maine School Garden Network, which has over 125 registered school gardens. In AUS, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation primarily supports the school garden movement and has over 800 registered school gardens. While many researchers have studied school gardens, few have compared two countries, focused on environmental sustainability, or investigated Maine in particular. This thesis combines information from literature reviews, and …

Communities Of Abundance: Sociality, Sustainability, And The Solidarity Economies Of Local Food-Related Business Networks In Knoxville, Tennessee, Tony Nathan Vanwinkle

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the socio-economic and eco-political dimensions of contemporary localist food movements in Knoxville, Tennessee. More specifically, it explores the implications of the mutualistic and networked socio-economies (solidarity and/or community economies) of such movement expressions as they are experienced, embodied, and understood among the small-scale, independent food-related business owners who often serve as the interpellators of such movements. This study is likewise concerned with ways in which movement actors are actively shaping/creating place (via the processes of emplacement), and relatedly, the way place—as an entity possessive of its own accretions of environmental, historical, cultural, economic, and political identities—shapes actors, …

Composting: Sustainable Efforts On A University Scale, Kacie L. Thorne Miss

Honors College Theses

The present study addresses cultural standpoints on solid food waste management into composting in the hopes of establishing food composting units on a university campus. The study addresses the cultural standpoints through qualitative data in relation to cultural, economic, and political spheres. The hypothesis for the study is the data will reflect a positive outlook in assessing the cost and benefits of composting units. The implementation of a food waste composting programs presents various costs and benefits in regard to economic and social needs that can have an impact on human interaction with the use of natural resources.

Sustainable Agriculture, Charlene Mills

Social Sciences

This paper is about sustainable agriculture and how we can strive to achieve it. It discusses what is wrong with our food system today and how we can go about changing that. It incorporates Geography and Anthropology while discussing different issues around the world.

A Literary Analysis And Case Study Evaluation Of The Environmental, Cultural, And Economic Impacts Of Ecotourism, Ashley M. Driver

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

Building Sustainable Societies: Exploring Sustainability Policy And Practice In The Age Of High Consumption, Cindy Isenhour

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an attempt to examine how humans in wealthy, post-industrial urban contexts understand sustainability and respond to their concerns given their sphere of influence. I focus specifically on sustainable consumption policy and practice in Sweden, where concerns for sustainability and consumer-based responses are strong. This case raises interesting questions about the relative strength of sustainability movements in different cultural and geo-political contexts as well as the specific factors that have motivated the movement toward sustainable living in Sweden.

The data presented here supports the need for multigenic theories of sustainable consumerism. Rather than relying on dominant theories of …

Sustainability In Practice: A Study Of The Sustainable Behaviors Of Students At The Univeristy Of Tennessee At Chattanooga, Audrey Glor

Honors Theses

Sustainable behaviors, such as recycling, are increasingly important as the world's population continues to rise. While many attempts have been made at various institutions, recycling on a grand scale has yet to become a social reality. This study was designed to look at the three broad factors influencing an individual's recycling behavior: social pressure, knowledge base, and convenience. It was hypothesized that social pressure would have the greatest influence on an individual's recycling behavior, while not overlooking the importance of the other two factors. A questionnaire was employed to collect data from a sample population at the University of Tennessee …