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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Affective Landscapes Of Herbalism In New Mexico, Samantha Angelou Stroud May 2023

The Affective Landscapes Of Herbalism In New Mexico, Samantha Angelou Stroud

Geography ETDs

Herbalism, or practices which use plants for medicinal purposes, is tied to traditions in several cultures of the American Southwest, including Indigenous herbal medicine, Mexican-American curanderismo, and Western herbal traditions. Herbalism has been steadily gaining mainstream popularity since the late 1960s, alongside counterculture, holistic health, and back-to-nature movements, introducing many newcomers to the practice. This study asks: How does herbalism create and attach meaning to plants, cultures, and place in New Mexico? What are the affective landscapes produced by herbalism in New Mexico? And, to what extent do meaningful attachments manifest in ethics and actions of care? I argue that …


Between Two Rivers: Environmental Justice And The Politics Of Ecological Improvement In Puget Sound, Grant M. Gutierrez Sep 2022

Between Two Rivers: Environmental Justice And The Politics Of Ecological Improvement In Puget Sound, Grant M. Gutierrez

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Environmental justice (EJ) has become a central framework for historically marginalized communities in the United States to identify unequal exposure to environmental harm. Yet, what once began as a radical social movement challenge to different forms of environmental racism has been taken-up by a wide swathe of civil society across diverse political, cultural, and ecological landscapes. In particular, river restoration efforts – and the many communities they implicate – are emerging as key sites of political-ecological interventions that are central to EJ. However, not all river restoration efforts employ EJ as a guiding framework. Through this dissertation, I ask: how …


Elephants In The Room: Covid-19 Pandemic Political Ecologies Of Tourism In Tanzania, Helen C. Richardson Jan 2022

Elephants In The Room: Covid-19 Pandemic Political Ecologies Of Tourism In Tanzania, Helen C. Richardson

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth unprecedented and ever-changing crisis and disruption to societies and economies around the globe.[1] As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to interrupt travel worldwide, the tourism industry, and the countries who rely on it as a major source of income, are in crisis. These processes have reconfigured economic capital flows and foreign investment in the global south. This is particularly the case in Tanzania, as tourism was Tanzania’s highest foreign exchange earner and accounted for 17% of Tanzania’s gross domestic product in 2019.[2] This project draws upon a political ecology framework to examine the Tanzanian …


Nuanced Networks: How Social Relationships And Power Influence Participation In Private Lands Conservation Programs, Ellen Loechner Nov 2021

Nuanced Networks: How Social Relationships And Power Influence Participation In Private Lands Conservation Programs, Ellen Loechner

Geography ETDs

Because the majority of land in the Midwestern United States is privately owned, the responsibility for creating and maintaining space for wildlife conservation falls upon private landowners. Numerous state and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) host private lands conservation programs that offer landowners financial and technical support to complete conservation projects on their property (Echols, Front, and Cummins 2019). While the individual motivations and priorities of a landowner may inform how they use and manage their property, a landowner’s ability to connect with the agricultural and conservation communities may determine if they have the opportunity to participate in these …


Women, Water, And Well-Being: Gendered Experiences Of Household Water Contamination In Parkersburg, West Virginia, Emily Brooke Tingler Jan 2021

Women, Water, And Well-Being: Gendered Experiences Of Household Water Contamination In Parkersburg, West Virginia, Emily Brooke Tingler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

DuPont Washington Works chemical plant knowingly pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic C8 waste into local waterways, water tables, and landfills for over 40 years, contaminating the drinking water for more than 100,000 residents in and around Parkersburg, West Virginia. Drawing on feminist political ecology and the political ecology of water with literature on perceptions of risk in contaminated communities, environmental reproductive justice, modern water, and hydrosocial waterscapes, I examine, through a qualitative case study, the lived experiences of women who have an intimate understanding of C8 water contamination from the DuPont Washington Works chemical plant. Specifically, I …


Living Rivers, Cosmopolitan Activism, And Environmental Justice In The Bengal Delta, Daniel Adel Jan 2020

Living Rivers, Cosmopolitan Activism, And Environmental Justice In The Bengal Delta, Daniel Adel

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis explores the social movements and civil society activism to protect the rivers that flow through Bangladesh—the cradle and terminal delta floodplain of the transboundary Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river systems—, as well as ways to build regional cooperation and watershed democracy in South Asia. The research drew on four overarching fields of study: environmental justice, southern environmentalism, ecological nationalism, and environmental governance. These four bodies of scholarship helped address the overarching question: how are civil society organizations analyzing and responding to the water diversions and degradation of Bangladesh’s transboundary rivers? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with civil society organizations …


Sacrifices For Development Or Thirst For Capital Accumulation? Case Study On The “El Diquís Hydroelectric Dam” In Costa Rica., Marco Mora Mar 2019

Sacrifices For Development Or Thirst For Capital Accumulation? Case Study On The “El Diquís Hydroelectric Dam” In Costa Rica., Marco Mora

Sustainability and Social Justice

Costa Rica’s state-led model of energy generation based on large-scale investments in hydropower has given the country autonomy in generating its own energy as well as sovereignty over its natural resources. Successive governments have used nationalist and ecological discourses to support the continued expansion of hydropower as the path to economic development. In more recent decades however, a number of factors have been eroding the dominance of the state-led hydropower development model. Some of those elements are the national and international pressures to liberalize and privatize the energy sector, an increasing body of scientific evidence indicating that large-scale hydropower in …


Culture As Sustainability: The Case Study Of Govardhan Ecovillage And Vedic Culture In India, Danielle Lella Bartolone Feb 2019

Culture As Sustainability: The Case Study Of Govardhan Ecovillage And Vedic Culture In India, Danielle Lella Bartolone

Theses and Dissertations

This project investigates the relationship between sustainability and Vedic culture of India. The ethnographic research at Govardhan Ecovillage seeks to understand how sustainability is embedded in culture. I employ grounded theory for my research methodology which reveals three key themes explaining fundamental and interrelated dimensions of Vedic culture as sustainability.


Putting Rooted Networks Into Practice, Alida Cantor, Elizabeth A. Stoddard, Dianne Rocheleau, Jennifer F. Brewer, Robin Roth, Trevor Birkenholtz, Katherine Foo, Padini Nirmal Oct 2018

Putting Rooted Networks Into Practice, Alida Cantor, Elizabeth A. Stoddard, Dianne Rocheleau, Jennifer F. Brewer, Robin Roth, Trevor Birkenholtz, Katherine Foo, Padini Nirmal

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rooted networks provide a conceptual framework that embeds network thinking in nature-society geography in order to investigate socio-ecological relations, while emphasizing the place-specific materiality of these relations. This progress report examines how geographers have put the framework into scholarly practice. The conceptual approach has enabled researchers to: 1) articulate the territoriality and materiality of networks as assemblages, which may be simultaneously rooted and mobile; 2) discern diverse types of power that flow through network connections; and 3) conduct analyses that unearth multiply-situated knowledges within networks. Challenges emerge as we seek to integrate the approach more fully with disciplinary traditions, including …


We Refugees, Again, Aaron Linas Sep 2018

We Refugees, Again, Aaron Linas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dramatic shifts in climate have generated a new form of global displacement. These ‘climate migrants’ challenge the notion of state sovereignty by introducing a new paradigm for global responsibility. I seek to address this emerging demand of sovereignty by outlining the normative mechanisms of state institutions when encountering displaced persons. The extreme cases of disappearing island nations creates stateless population incompatible with standard liberal values of humanitarianism and border security. My claim is that current normative institutions and principles of assistance to migrating people are insufficient to manage the international crisis of climate change. To be able to aid migrants …


Degrowth Lessons From Cuba, Claire S. Bayler May 2018

Degrowth Lessons From Cuba, Claire S. Bayler

Sustainability and Social Justice

Cuba is the global leader in practicing agroecology, but agroecology is just one component of a larger climate-ready socio-economic system. Degrowth economics address the need to constrain our total global metabolism to within biophysical limits, while allowing opportunity and resources for "underdeveloped" countries to rebuild themselves under new terms. Degrowth recognizes the role of overdeveloped countries in surpassing the ecological limits of our planet at the cost of wellbeing for billions of dispossessed people within and between countries. Cuba's circumstances during and following the Special Period exemplify both sides of the degrowth scenario, as well as demonstrating policy and grassroots …


Fracked Perceptions: Changes In Perception Regarding Hydraulic Fracturing Among Residents Of Dimock, Pennsylvania., Brian Straniti Jan 2017

Fracked Perceptions: Changes In Perception Regarding Hydraulic Fracturing Among Residents Of Dimock, Pennsylvania., Brian Straniti

All Master's Theses

The primary objective of this research is to critically analyze changes in perceptions associated with hydraulic fracturing within Dimock, Pennsylvania. Residents of Dimock initially welcomed fracking in 2006 due to positive corporate rhetoric promoting economic benefits such as mineral rights acquisition, land-leasing, and local business development. However, economic benefits diminished as Dimock advanced through a boom period resulting in a current economic and ecological bust. Two months of data collection occurred in the summer of 2016 using semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis. Political economy of nature and political ecology theoretical frameworks were used to analyze and conceptualize the …


Politics Below The Surface: A Political Ecology Of Mineral Rights And Land Tenure Struggles In Appalachia And The Andes, Lindsay Shade Jan 2017

Politics Below The Surface: A Political Ecology Of Mineral Rights And Land Tenure Struggles In Appalachia And The Andes, Lindsay Shade

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines how confusion and lack of access to information about subsurface property rights facilitates the rapid acquisition of mineral rights by mining interests, leaving those who live 'above the surface' to contend with complicated corporate and bureaucratic apparatuses. The research focuses on the first proposed state-run large scale mining project in Ecuador, believed to contain copper ores, and on the natural gas hydrofracking industry in three counties in north central West Virginia. Qualitative and visual methods, including mapping, are employed to determine (i.) how the geography of subsurface ownership patterns is changing, (ii.) links between changes in subsurface …


Mahogany Intertwined: Enviromateriality Between Mexico, Fiji, And The Gibson Les Paul, Jose E. Martinez-Reyes Sep 2015

Mahogany Intertwined: Enviromateriality Between Mexico, Fiji, And The Gibson Les Paul, Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

This article builds a theory of enviromateriality through a global ethnography that engages both the material culture and materiality of a tree species, Honduran mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), and the global political ecology of forest conservation. The author seeks to understand what Adorno calls the ‘constellation’ between people and mahogany by tracing human–nature relations through the global commodity chain focusing on one particular artefact, the Gibson Les Paul, an iconic solid wood electric guitar made primarily of mahogany grown in Mexico and Fiji. Enviromateriality considers three phases in which to examine the material and materiality in a variety of processes that …


"Nature Is Pushing One Way And People Are Pushing The Other": A Political Ecology Of Forest Transitions In Western Montgomery County, Pa, Megan Elizabeth Maccaroni Apr 2014

"Nature Is Pushing One Way And People Are Pushing The Other": A Political Ecology Of Forest Transitions In Western Montgomery County, Pa, Megan Elizabeth Maccaroni

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

Forests in Southeastern Pennsylvania have been shaped by a number of anthropocentric factors over the past century, with many areas experiencing a recent trend towards forest recovery. Studies on forest dynamics have shown that most developed regions exhibit a forest transition, which begins when land is cleared for natural resource extraction (e.g., agriculture, forestry) during an early development stage. Then as a population grows and food production needs are met, rural peoples begin to migrate to the city, and a feeling of scarcity of trees develops that may lead to changes in land management attitudes, and many formerly deforested areas …


Urban Foraging And The Relational Ecologies Of Belonging, Melissa R. Poe, Joyce Lecompte, Rebecca J. Mclain, Patrick T. Hurley Apr 2014

Urban Foraging And The Relational Ecologies Of Belonging, Melissa R. Poe, Joyce Lecompte, Rebecca J. Mclain, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Through a discussion of urban foraging in Seattle, Washington, USA, we examine how people's plant and mushroom harvesting practices in cities are linked to relationships with species, spaces, and ecologies. Bringing a relational approach to political ecology, we discuss the ways that these particular nature–society relationships are formed, legitimated, and mobilized in discursive and material ways in urban ecosystems. Engaging closely with and as foragers, we develop an ethnographically grounded ‘relational ecologies of belonging’ framework to conceptualize and examine three constituent themes: cultural belonging and identity, belonging and place, and belonging and more-than-human agency. Through this case study, we show …


Urban Forest Justice And The Rights To Wild Foods, Medicines, And Materials In The City, Melissa R. Poe, Rebecca J. Mclain, Marla R. Emery, Patrick T. Hurley Feb 2013

Urban Forest Justice And The Rights To Wild Foods, Medicines, And Materials In The City, Melissa R. Poe, Rebecca J. Mclain, Marla R. Emery, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Urban forests are multifunctional socio-ecological landscapes, yet some of their social benefits remain poorly understood. This paper draws on ethnographic evidence from Seattle, Washington to demonstrate that urban forests contain nontimber forest products that contribute a variety of wild foods, medicines, and materials for the well-being of urban residents. We show that gathering wild plants and fungi in urban forests is a persistent subsistence and livelihood practice that provides sociocultural and material benefits to city residents, and creates opportunities for connecting with nature and enhancing social ties. We suggest that an orientation toward human-nature interactions in cities that conceptualizes the …


Border Integrations: The Fusion Of Political Ecology And Land Change Science To Inform And Contest Transboundary Integration In Amazonia, David S. Salisbury, Mariano Castro Sanchez-Moreno, Luis Davalous Torres, Robert Guimaraes Vasquez, Jose Saito Diaz, Pedro Tipula Tipula, Andres Treneman Young, Carlos Arana Courrejolles, Martin Arana Cardo, Grupo De Monitoreo De Megaproyectos Region Ucayali Jan 2013

Border Integrations: The Fusion Of Political Ecology And Land Change Science To Inform And Contest Transboundary Integration In Amazonia, David S. Salisbury, Mariano Castro Sanchez-Moreno, Luis Davalous Torres, Robert Guimaraes Vasquez, Jose Saito Diaz, Pedro Tipula Tipula, Andres Treneman Young, Carlos Arana Courrejolles, Martin Arana Cardo, Grupo De Monitoreo De Megaproyectos Region Ucayali

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

In the southwestern Amazon lies the Sierra del Divisor, an isolated cluster of mist-covered peaks and ridges rising out of the steamy lowland rainforest. The forests of these fiercely dissected crests and valleys still ring with the low grunt of jaguar and the thunderous clacks of hundreds-strong herds of whitelipped peccaries, while the canopy sways with troops of the rare red Uakari monkey. This biodiversity inspired the Serra do Divisor National Park, and its transboundary sister reserve, but these forests are also home to humans: the descendants of Asheninka warriors and rubber tappers, a re-emergent Nawa people, I and most …


Shifting Policies, Access, And The Tragedy Of Enclosures In Ecuadorian Mangrove Fisheries: Towards A Political Ecology Of The Commons, Christine M. Beitl Jan 2012

Shifting Policies, Access, And The Tragedy Of Enclosures In Ecuadorian Mangrove Fisheries: Towards A Political Ecology Of The Commons, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

After decades of mangrove deforestation for the development of shrimp farming, the Ecuadorian state began to officially recognize the ancestral rights of traditional users of coastal mangrove resources in the late 1990s. This article traces the trajectory of coastal policy change and the transformation of mangrove tenure regimes from an implicit preference for shrimp aquaculture to a focus on conservation and sustainable development with greater community participation through the establishment of community-managed mangrove areas called custodias. I argue that while the custodias have empowered local communities in their struggle to defend their livelihoods and environment against the marginalizing forces of …


Money, Power And Landscapes Of Consumption, Ana Miscolta-Cameron Oct 2010

Money, Power And Landscapes Of Consumption, Ana Miscolta-Cameron

Geography Capstone Projects

This paper explores the phenomenon of national parks and reserves in Tanzania as a product of early colonial ideology and the evolution of that ideology into a post-independence capitalist enterprise. Serengeti National Park, Selous Game Reserve and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area are examined as historically contested sites in which indigenous people have been denied customary use rights by successive regimes of power keen on profiting through resource exploitation and tourism. Though this paper’s focus is Tanzania, it attempts to reveal a pattern of colonial and neo-colonial environmentalism widespread throughout the developing world.


Resistant Place Identities In Rural Charleston County, South Carolina: Cultural, Environmental, And Racial Politics In The Sewee To Santee Area, Cassandra Y. Johnson, Angela C. Halfacre, Patrick T. Hurley Jul 2009

Resistant Place Identities In Rural Charleston County, South Carolina: Cultural, Environmental, And Racial Politics In The Sewee To Santee Area, Cassandra Y. Johnson, Angela C. Halfacre, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

The cultural and political implications of landscape change and urban growth in the western U.S. are well-documented. However, comparatively little scholarship has examined the effects of urbanization on sense of place in the southern U.S. We contribute to the literature on competing place meanings with a case study from the rural “Sewee to Santee” region of northern Charleston County, SC. Our research highlights conflicting cultural, environmental, and racial politics and their roles in struggles over place meanings. Using focus groups, interviews with elected officials, and participant observation, we document initial African American resistance and eventual compliance with the prevailing anti-sprawl …


'Wild Capitalism’ And ‘Ecocolonialism’: A Tale Of Two Rivers, Krista Harper Jan 2005

'Wild Capitalism’ And ‘Ecocolonialism’: A Tale Of Two Rivers, Krista Harper

Krista M. Harper

The development and pollution of two rivers, the Danube and Tisza, have been the site and subject of environmental protests and projects in Hungary since the late 1980s. Protests against the damming of the Danube rallied opposition to the state socialist government, drawing on discourses of national sovereignty and international environmentalism. The Tisza suffered a major environmental disaster in 2000, when a globally financed gold mine in Romania spilled thousands of tons of cyanide and other heavy metals into the river, sending a plume of pollution downriver into neighboring countries. In this article, I examine the symbolic ecologies that emerged …