Digital Commons Network^™

How Do We Collaborate? A Look Into Maine's Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network, Abby Jane Roche

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a society we realize that the dynamic needs of science and society are often complex and interdependent and that there is a need to work with and across diverse expertise and practices in order to create the development of new methods and to provide innovative solutions to socially relevant work. Thus, we call collaborative research efforts into action. Maine’s Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANET) is such an endeavor, as it is a collaborative effort traversing a nexus of complex, dynamic challenges in Maine, including issues related to socio-economic shifts, climate change, and declining capture fisheries. While SEANET’s plan to …

Playing At Women And Men: A Discourse Analysis Of Gender And Sexuality Performance In An Online Play-By-Post Role-Playing Game, Caitlin M. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online play-by-post role-playing games mark the discursive intersection between computer-mediated-communication and gaming. The performance of gender and sexuality is an important aspect of online play-by-post role-playing games.

Although play-by-post role-playing games are open world and do not have the same graphical and technological constraints as other forms of gaming, the performances on them are governed by both explicit and implicit rules. Performances of gender and sexuality are also governed by cultural standards. This thesis seeks to describe how players perform gender and sexuality within these boundaries.

This thesis describes the performance of gender and sexuality on the website Another Day …

Grassroots Diplomacy And Vernacular Law: The Discourse Of Food Sovereignty In Maine, John Welton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine, a coalition of small-scale farmers, consumers, and citizens building an alternative food system based on a distributed form of production, processing, selling, purchasing, and consumption. This distribution occurs at the municipal level through the enactment of ordinances. Using critical-rhetorical field methods, I argue that the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine develops a ‘constitutive’ rhetoric that composes rural society through affective relationships. Advocates engage the industrial food system to both expose its systemic bias against small-scale farming and construct their own discourse of belonging. Based upon agrarian values such as …