Place and Environment Commons^™

Betanzos: Enfrentando El Cambio Climático \ Betanzos: Confronting Climate Change, Cody Eaton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Como para la gran mayoría de la gente de las naciones de un nivel alto de desarrollo de la economía, los efectos del cambio climático no tienen un impacto significativo en mi vida diaria. El grado de separación de las consecuencias de mi consumo me permite quedarme en la ignorancia, pero la gente de la municipalidad agrícola de Betanzos no tiene el mismo privilegio; el cambio climático es una amenaza a su medio de vida. Este documental investiga la realidad actual de Betanzos y cómo los actores desde el nivel comunitario hasta el gobierno nacional intentan enfrentar y adaptarse a …

Optimized Organic Waste Treatment System An Assessment Of Composting And Biogas Potential At Santos Organics, Abbie Winter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Food waste holds incredible environmental degradation implications due to its ability to produce and emit potent greenhouse gases, as well as allow for the resources initially used to produce it to go to waste. When in a gloabal crisis of environmental degradation as well as food security, it is a shame to see food be wasted when other more optimal outlets are available.

This study utilizes the Triple Bottom Line to assess the ideal systems with which the three branches of Santos Organics should manage their food waste to optimize its lifecycle in order to further promote the business’ status …

Geopolitical Relations: Uganda’S Role In The Development Of The River Nile, Jordan Williams

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examined the geopolitical relations of the Nile Basin by looking at Uganda as a case study, and analyzed Uganda’s use and development of the River Nile. It reviews the history of transboundary politics and treaties along with Uganda’s development projects in the region. The paper then discusses modern relations and agreements, with a focus on the most recent agreement between the Riparian States, the Cooperative Framework Agreement, and how Uganda fits into them with regards to their interest in hydropower development within their borders on the Nile. It then explores possible future developments on the river and the …

Life In Hampton Roads: Sea Level Rise And Flooding, Public Affairs & News Bureau, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

Community Management And Governance Of Comatsa-Sud New Protected Area (Ambalamanasy Ii Commune), Allison Tennant

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Community-based natural resource management is an increasingly more popular choice for governments to delegate power back to local communities to conserve the resources they rely on. In Madagascar, where much of the rural population provides for their livelihoods by using natural resources, this governance structure, in cooperation with delegated manager for assistance, presents an opportunity for economic development in cooperation with conservation efforts. This paper aims to better understand the role of community, NGO, and governmental actors in creating and executing community management structures. Through Participatory Rural Analysis and structured and semi-structured interviews, it explores what management transfers look like …

The Virtualism Of “Capacity Building” Workshops In Indigenous Amazonia, Laura Mentore

Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry Articles

Sustainable development and conservation NGOs in Amazonia often hold workshops in which they task indigenous communities with various activities in the name of “capacity building.” People tend to perform these tasks despite often finding them to be flawed, demeaning, or based on erroneous assumptions about their lifeways and perspectives. Workshop organizers, for their part, tend to view local participation in itself as a straightforward indicator of a successful workshop to the neglect of a more complex picture. These combined tendencies contribute to expectations on both sides being partially fulfilled at best, but due to asymmetrical power distributions, can have disproportionately …

Water Injustice In Jendouba Governorate, Wilder Mccoy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Water is a precious resource even in a tropical rainforest, and in a dry country like Tunisia it is essential. Located in the south central region of the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia, like nearly every other Mediterranean country, faces a stark challenge in providing clean drinking water to its growing population. Compared to its neighbors, Tunisia, with a few minor exceptions, does a good job in meeting this goal. In the rural northwestern governorate of Jendouba, where most of the country’s surface water comes from, there is ironically a dire need for clean drinking water in the rural areas outside the …

Vrai: The Culture Of Knockoff Goods In Morocco Their Social Value, Utility, And Context In Contemporary Rabat, Peter Nyberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Fashion has long been an aspect of culture through which people identify, and it serves as a marker for class, nationality, and various other social statuses. With the continued democratization of culture via the internet and its various outlets, such as social media, fashion culture and the divide between high couture and mass-produced clothing, as noted by Bourdieu, is becoming less distinct. In the context of Rabat, Morocco, this has partially played out in the consumption of knockoff goods by the youth, a part of a larger individuation[1] process that includes a “westernization”of dress and a slow departure from …

Sí O No A La Carretera: Las Distintas Perspectivas Geopolíticas En El Debate Sobre La Carretera A Través Del Tipnis / Yes Or No To The Road: The Different Geopolitical Perspectives In The Debate On The Road Through The Tipnis, Brigid Freed

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Abstracto

Podemos ver el Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS) como una representación importante de los valores de Bolivia. El parque tiene más de un millón de hectáreas de selva protegida y es el hábitat de 64 comunidades indígenas. Por eso, el territorio es muy importante para el medio ambiente y también para las culturales de las personas indígenas en Bolivia. Aunque, bajo el liderazgo del primer, presidente indígena de Bolivia, Presidente Evo Morales, se está realizando un proyecto de desarrollo para construir una carretera a través de la corazón del territorio. Recientemente, en Agosto de 2017, el …

Losing Faith: An Exploration Of Village Ponds In The Thar Desert, Pentti Hanlon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The intention of this study is to provide a holistic look at the Naadi: a rain-fed common property resource used for drinking water collection in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan. A sustainer of human life in the Thar, Naadis have decided how and where residents of the Thar lived. This study examines both current and historical naadi use in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. The format of the study is a compilation and analysis of 15 field visits, a series of interviews, and investigation of recent alternatives to naadis. The success of a naadi is a function of geology, geography, and …

Understanding Sanitation Preferences: An Exploratory Study In The Sirohi District Of Rajasthan, Karen Mac

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Of all the countries in the world, India has the highest number of people practicing open defecation, causing adverse health outcomes from the unconfined spread of faecal matter. The Government of India is ambitiously aiming to end this practice through the construction of 12 million toilets by 2019, but historically, many toilets across India have gone unused. This study focused on understanding: (1) the reasons why people continue to openly defecate despite having toilets and (2) the requirements of a toilet that rural households would be willing to use. Along with 36 observations of household toilets, semi-structured group (n=8) and …

The Effect Of Warming On Wind Speed And Potential Wind Power In Iceland, Alexei Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Climate change is causing a shift in the temperature and pressure gradient between the Arctic and the Equator, with the Arctic warming at a faster rate than the Equator. This shift has the potential to alter the seasonal wind speeds in the Northern Hemisphere, which could in turn affect the wind power density potential. In this study, a wind model was created to predict future wind speeds and wind power density for 6 weather stations in Iceland. According to the model, winter wind speeds and wind power density potential will either stay the same or increase slightly (0 – 4%), …

The Role Of Young Environmental Activists In Iceland And Furthering Youth Engagement With Environmental Issues, Story Schwantes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper looks at the role of youth environmental activism in Iceland and how these actors view their work in a country which has long held a reputation as one of the greenest in the world. Much of the credit for that distinction goes not to careful choices, sacrifice, or excellent stewardship but rather to its ideal geography providing massive geothermal energy which Iceland turns into electricity, a clean renewable source. So are there young environmental activists in Iceland, and if so what do they do? Short answer: yes, and they study and talk. The long answer is more complex. …

A Critical Examination Of The Climate Change Vulnerability And Adaptation Literature In Nunavut, Canada, Sarah Prentice

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper attempts to study the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature in Nunavut, a province in the Canadian Arctic. The paper begins with a review of literature produced by Inuit organizations on colonization in the Canadian Arctic and Nunavut specifically, then systematically reviews the literature on climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Using a post-colonial analysis, this study found that while the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature attempts to attend to colonial histories and legacies, it often falls short. Climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature had minimal representation of colonization, residential schooling, sanatoria, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. This may perpetuate …

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey [2017], Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The authors undertook the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey. The survey was completed in March 2017 and was made possible through funds from the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. The survey was carried out by the research company, Blackbox Research. The survey sample is representative of the demographics of the Singapore population. In particular, we sought the views of 2000 Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents aged 21 years and above. A response rate of about 70% of eligible households was obtained. In general, we found that there was a high level of satisfaction on the cleanliness of public spaces …

The Shifting Discourse On Third Places: Ideological Implications, Mark N. Wexler, Judy Oberlander

Journal of Ideology

Within the social sciences, literature on third places attempts to assist in the construction of a social concept of “place”. This notion of a place is an idealization of the bridging space with home and family on one side, and work with the rule-based impersonality of life in mass society, on the other. Like the idea of work-life balance—as seen through the vocabulary of placemaking—third places provide people with a place in which there is a balance between the emotive attachments of home and family and the challenge striving for merit and reward in the marketplace. To date, third places …

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Temporal Stability Of Crime Hot Spots And The Criminology Of Place, Michael J. Deckard

Dissertations

It is widely recognized that the distribution of crime in urban areas is not randomly distributed, but is highly concentrated in small pockets of space known as crime “hot spots”. While the empirical evidence supporting the law of crime concentration is strong, most studies that have examined the stability of crime hot spots over time have aggregated crime across years. This dissertation seeks to expand our understanding of the temporal stability of micro-geographic crime hot spots by addressing three research questions: (1) How are high-crime micro-places distributed at the monthly level? How much variation exists in the distribution of crime …

Desert Pool {If Every Desert Was Once A Sea}, Karen Miranda Abel

The Goose

Desert Pool {If every desert was once a sea} is a site-specific art project by Canadian artist Karen Miranda Abel completed in 2016 while artist-in-residence at Joya: arte + ecología, an arts-led research centre situated in an alpine desert within a national park in southern Spain. The elemental installation represents an envisioning of the ancient sea that occupied the Sierra de María-Los Vélez Natural Park millions of years before the current desert ecology, a time when its highest mountain peaks may have been islands.

Wilderness On The Page, John Steffler

The Goose

This essay explores the role that literature can play in a rethinking of Western culture's relationship with the natural environment.

Review Of A Companion To The Works Of Kim Scott By Belinda Wheeler (Ed.), Jose-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla

The Goose

A review on the book A Companion to the Works of Kim Scott edited by Belinda Wheeler.

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …

Literary Exposures For An Ecological Age, Christy Call

The Goose

This paper argues that exposures through literature to human fragility and vulnerability, which are default modes of life within the relational collective on-page, rehearse critical engagements for life off-page during a time of climate change.

Responding To A Racist Climate: An Editorial, Paul Huebener, Amanda M. Di Battista

The Goose

Editorial introduction to The Goose Volume 16, Issue 1 (2017).

No Time To Defend The Pre-Post-Truth World, Richard Pickard

The Goose

As much as the "post-truth" needs to be challenged and countered, the humanities can play a crucial role in keeping alive the understanding that the pre-post-truth world ought not to be conserved, but transformed positively. After all, this was a world marked by accelerating anthropogenic climate change, by ongoing and transforming colonialism, by racism as a structural pillar, by misogyny and sexism. The environmental humanities must retain their historic radical mission, and they will founder if they surrender such a potential.

Defending Truths, Restoring Worlds, Bart H. Welling

The Goose

The "post" in "post-truth" is premature, and also assigns too much importance to Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump in the US. Worst of all, it can foster the impression that people like Brexit voters and Trump supporters are irredeemably exiled in "alternative fact" bubbles beyond the reach of science, rational thought, and common decency. We have to find ways to work productively with these kinds of citizens, instead of merely condemning them, if we want to trigger both a worldwide alternative energy revolution and the revolution in politics and economics that a truly just and sustainable energy transition …

Entering The Lake, Edie Steiner

The Goose

Poetry by Edie Steiner.

What Rises Above The White Noise: The Possibility Of Hearing Truth In A Post-Truth World, Harriet Fraser, Rob Fraser

The Goose

This installation in a valley in the UK’s Lake District National Park taps into the idea of communication, the problem of apparent fact and post-truth, and which voices are being heard when it comes to standing up for the environment. In consideration of post-truth and the confusion between fact and fiction, particularly with regard to issues about environment, this art installation explores the possibility of clarity in voices that are heard above the white noise of facts, partial truths and information overload. It is a site-specific installation, created around a single tree and a rapidly flowing river in the Lake …

(Another) Battle In The Clouds, Mél Hogan

The Goose

At age ten, in 1918, Rachel Carson entered a writing contest and won. In "Battle in the Clouds", Carson wrote about the sky as a battlefield, where a soldier’s life is momentarily spared because of an act of bravery undeniable even by his enemies. They watch in awe and admiration rather than shoot. For my reimagining of the present as womb rather than grave, I reflect on the current use of the cloud in “cloud computing” to discuss the role of the internet and its material infrastructures in shaping earthly possibilities. I imagine the pace and place of awe rather …

Reading Speculative Futures In A Post-Truth World, Rachel Webb Jekanowski

The Goose

Faced with the threat of a “post-truth” world and a widening chasm of exchange between climate change deniers and environmentalists, I argue that future-orientated literary and media speculative fictions—which I term “speculative futures”—offer a means of building lines of communication across social and political divisions. This thought piece on “The Environmental Humanities in a Post-Truth World” mediates upon the potentiality of speculative futures as theory, social bridge-building, and pedagogical tool. Speculative fictions (especially those that address environmental justice, and anti-colonial and feminist politics) use storytelling and future imaginaries to challenge political falsehoods and imagine more ecological, de-colonized futures.

The Child To Come: Life After The Human Catastrophe By Rebekah Sheldon, Nathan Tebokkel

The Goose

Review of Rebekah Sheldon's The Child to Come: Life after the Human Catastrophe.