Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Framing A “Wicked” Debate: Subsistence, Nutrition, And Indigenous Rights Versus Deforestation, Air Pollution, And Climate Change, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation considers anthropogenic environmental change as a wicked problem in which multiple, divergent understandings of complex systems and changing conditions coexist. The stakes are high with this wicked problem for the whole Earth and all of humanity. Stakes are especially high in the tropical agropastoral communities whose resource management systems are the subject of much consternation and, at the same time, whose systems are incompletely known.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Adaptation Preferences And Responses To Sea Level Rise And Land Loss Risk In Southern Louisiana: A Survey-Based Analysis, Sandra Maina

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Currently, southern Louisiana faces extreme land loss that could reach an alarming rate of about one football sized swath of land every hour. The combined effect of land subsidence and predicted sea level rise threaten the culture and livelihood of the residents living in this region. As the most vulnerable coastal population in Louisiana, the communities of south Terrebonne Parish are called to adapt by accommodating, protecting, or retreating from the impacts of climate change. For effective preparation planning, the state of Louisiana needs to 1) understand the adaptation preferences and responses of these residents and 2) involve these vulnerable …

Socio-Ecological Vulnerability To Climate Change In South Florida, Emily Eisenhauer

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Awareness of extreme high tide flooding in coastal communities has been increasing in recent years, reflecting growing concern over accelerated sea level rise. As a low-lying, urban coastal community with high value real estate, Miami often tops the rankings of cities worldwide in terms of vulnerability to sea level rise. Understanding perceptions of these changes and how communities are dealing with the impacts reveals much about vulnerability to climate change and the challenges of adaptation.

This empirical study uses an innovative mixed-methods approach that combines ethnographic observations of high tide flooding, qualitative interviews and analysis of tidal data to reveal …

Religion, Partisanship, And Attitudes Towards Science Policy, Ted G. Jelen, Linda A. Lockett

Political Science Faculty Research

We examine issues involving science which have been contested in recent public debate. These “contested science” issues include human evolution, stem-cell research, and climate change. We find that few respondents evince consistently skeptical attitudes toward science issues, and that religious variables are generally strong predictors of attitudes toward individual issues. Furthermore, and contrary to analyses of elite discourse, partisan identification is not generally predictive of attitudes toward contested scientific issues.