Place and Environment Commons^™

Desingularizing “Self” And “Nature”: Bruno Latour’S Politics Of Nature And Lorraine Daston’S Against Nature, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

"... looking to embrace “the whole of nature” with the “totality of one’s self” is a gluttonous impossibility that betrays the real non-trope insatiable consumerism ..."

Book Review Jeff Vandermeer (2021), Hummingbird Salamander, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Editorial Introduction Vol 2 (1) 2021

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998): Reading Between His Lines, A Summary Judgment, Jay C. Fikes Phd

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Don Juan is a fictional character. Yaqui in Sonora and Arizona have no history of peyote rituals. These two facts help explain why, by 1975, Castaneda’s followers were seeking shamans comparable to Don Juan among the Huichol of Mexico. In recent years peyote tourists have invaded the sacred land where Huichol venerate the peyote spirit. The rising tide of tourists in that area is rapidly depleting peyote and has stimulated Mexican authorities to incarcerate Huichol peyote hunters (Fikes, 1993; 2013). In the early 1990s Castaneda created a cult, Tensegrity, which taught disciples stylized movements combining “tai chi, modern dance and …

Nostalgia, The Liminal, And Feral Love In Guillermo Enrique Hudson’S “Green Mansions”, George Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Plastic Shamans, Intellectual Colonialism And Intellectual Appropriation In New Age Movements, Joseba I. Arregi Phd

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

The reality of colonialism plagues indigenous populations and continues into the present, generating new scenarios of oppression. This new oppression is tied to so-called alternative models of progress, to the success of sustainable development, and to the recognition of the importance of biodiversity in the 21^st Century. This work presents three processes of biological and cultural appropriation which constitute a new chapter in the long history of colonial aggression and indigenous resistance.

Reflecting On Our Terrain: How People And Places Create A Spirit Of Home, Meagan E. Harkins

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the nature of home. It situates the idea of home, both as a physical place and a spiritual state, where the subjects of these stories find belonging. Fourteen interviews were conducted, from December 2020 through February 2021, resulting in a series of longform stories. Eight interviews were recorded with immediate family and childhood friends in my hometown, the suburbs of Orlando, Fla. The balance of the stories derived from Zoom interviews, culminating in a 1,200-mile road journey to South Carolina, for the remaining ones.

What emerged from these oral history interviews and ensuing longform pieces are three …

Lyme Disease In The U.S.: Where Is Risk Highest?, Mary E. Helander

Population Health Research Brief Series

Over 30,000 Lyme disease cases are reported to the CDC annually. Lyme disease, which is carried by ticks, can lead to numerous debilitating health conditions and even death. This data slice describes the geographic distribution of Lyme disease in the U.S. from 2009-2018 and summarizes prevention strategies.

Restoration Of Springfield Historic District, Rory Hampson

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Environmental Center Leadership Program Project

The purpose of this project was to walk the beloved historic Jacksonville neighborhood, Springfield, and notate which sidewalks were broken or otherwise needed repairments. This is critical for a small community such as Springfield as it is easily walkable for the residents and town travelers who come to tour the area. Broken sidewalks not only are incompliant with ADA guidelines but are unsafe for the general biker and walker, creating a key issue for community members. Rory Hampson was tasked with collecting and analyzing data to create a documentation of where the walkways that need …

Are Native Plants Green? Assessing Environmental Performances Of Locally-Owned Facilities, Narae Lee, Jiao Luo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the impact of corporate ownership and community conditions on firm environmental pollution. While the existing literature often thinks of environmental pollution as a unitary construct, we emphasize the distinction between toxic emissions, which have immediate but locally bounded impact, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which have gradual but global impact, producing climate change. Using a facility-level panel of all manufacturing facilities in the US from 2010-2018, and leveraging within-facility changes in ownership status, we show that locally owned firms have lower levels of toxic emissions, but they are also less likely to report GHG emissions, and have higher …

The Library As A Safe(R) Space: Student Thoughts About The Library’S Role On Campus, Jessica Crossfield Mcintosh, Kristin Cole, Megan Powell

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

As the demographics of college students continue to evolve, libraries must examine areas of need between their staff and the campus community. These changes and recent other recent campus events required Otterbein’s Courtright Memorial Library to question its role in providing safe(r) spaces to students of minority communities and to examine its role as a social justice advocate for inclusivity on campus. Our student body is historically white, yet our 2019 freshman class was the most diverse in its history with 23% students of color. The enrollment of students with diverse backgrounds continues to climb with our welcoming of first-generation …

Beliefs And Social Norms As Precursors Of Environmental Support: The Joint Influence Of Collectivism And Socioeconomic Status, David K. Sherman, John A. Updegraff, Michelle S. Handy, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Sim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present research investigates how the cultural value of collectivism interacts with socioeconomic status (SES) to influence the basis of action. Using a U.S. national sample (N = 2,538), the research examines how these sociocultural factors jointly moderate the strength of two precursors of environmental support: beliefs about climate change and perceived descriptive norms. SES and collectivism interacted with climate change beliefs such that beliefs predicted environmental support (i.e., proenvironmental behaviors and policy support) more strongly for those who were high in SES and low in collectivism than for all other groups. This interaction was explained, in part, by sense …

Catholics & Cultures As An Act Of Improvisation: A Response, Thomas M. Landy

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay responds to seven articles published in the same issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism on the use of Catholics & Cultures, a multimedia website, as a pedagogical resource for college classrooms. The site is deliberately presented in a fashion that undermines notions of center and periphery and presents Catholicism from a lay, lived-religion perspective as the multicultural faith that it is, minimizing reference to religious typologies. Particular attention is given to how to navigate tensions around theorizing, categorizing and sorting information for cross-cultural comparison. Given scholars’ current state of knowledge, writing about and teaching about global Catholicism …

The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell

Journal of Global Catholicism

Reflecting on my experience teaching Introduction to Global Christianity, this essay ponders questions at the heart of undergraduate teaching: How can we encourage students to utilize online sources? How can we empower them to seek out answers to their questions? It offers practical examples of how I have used the Catholics & Cultures website in my classroom at a large public university. In particular, I reflect on my experience working with students who are mostly of Catholic heritage, but from many cultural and social contexts.

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …

Ritual Among The Scilohtac: Global Catholicism, The Nacirema, And Interfaith Studies, Anita Houck

Journal of Global Catholicism

More than six decades after its publication, Horace Miner’s 1956 article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” remains a reliable pedagogical tool, remarkably successful in helping students see their own ethnocentric biases. Catholics & Cultures has potential to do similar work. The site lacks some of what makes Miner’s text so effective, in particular its capacity to bring about a sudden shift in perception. The site also shares some of the article’s limitations, particularly in focusing on ritual to the relative exclusion of other aspects of religion. That said, the site can help students gain the religious literacy and develop the …

Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder

Journal of Global Catholicism

The dynamics of religious resurgence reveal the important ways that religious ritual and performance are meaning making spaces which are not self-contained or cut off from the rest of culture, but rather are a key locus of cultural change. A renewed emphasis on the busy intersections of meaning making – as rituals are connected, disconnected, and reconnected to other domains of social life – would improve the utility of the Catholics & Cultures website for understanding global cultural change. And a renewed emphasis on cultural change would also provide a better means for exploring reflexively by seeking to understand both …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In introducing the Catholics & Cultures site and the articles in this special issue, this essay initially locates the overall Catholic & Cultures project within the traditions of ethnography and encyclopedia. Drawing extensively on the work of J. Z. Smith, this essay reflects upon the theoretical implications of emphasizing the diversity of Catholicism in and through a web-based platform that facilitates comparative study and pedagogy. This essay then more specifically considers the web-based aspects of Catholics & Cultures by identifying a nascent cyborgian aesthetic in the site and considering how the site might eventually engage post-modern themes and concerns.

Battling The Public Health Harms Of Tobacco Takes Time, Persistence, And Political Will: Reflecting On The New York State Clean Indoor Air Act Of 2003, Mary E. Helander

Population Health Research Brief Series

New York State’s Clean Indoor Air Act of 2003 (CAA03) and similar state laws are credited with curtailing several smoking-related diseases and deaths in the U.S. Yet smoking remains the top preventable cause of disease and premature death in the U.S. This issue brief summarizes the history of NY CAA03, discusses the efforts of key players to get the bill passed, and advocates for a more robust national strategy to address the still prevalent but preventable health consequences of smoking in the U.S.

Environmental Justice, Settler Colonialism, And More-Than-Humans In The Occupied West Bank: An Introduction, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Our special issue provides a first-of-its kind attempt to examine environmental injustices in the occupied West Bank through interdisciplinary perspectives, pointing to the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts within which they occur and to their more-than-human implications. Specifically, we seek to understand what environmental justice—a movement originating from, and rooted in, the United States—means in the context of Palestine/Israel. Moving beyond the settler-native dialectic, we draw attention to the more-than-human flows that occur in the region—which include water, air, waste, cement, trees, donkeys, watermelons, and insects—to consider the dynamic, and often gradational, meanings of frontier, enclosure, and Indigeneity in …

Integrating Policies, Systems, And Environments (Pse) Work Into Fcs Extension Programming: Lessons Learned From A Multi-State Training, Lisa T. Washburn, Heather Norman-Burgdolf, Karen L. Franck, Lauren E. Kennedy, Christopher T. Sneed

Dietetics and Human Nutrition Faculty Publications

Public health efforts have emphasized changes to policies, systems and environments (PSEs) to improve health behaviors for individuals and communities. Extension has increasingly emphasized these approaches, particularly for work of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) agents. In part, this emphasis on PSEs in Extension has been driven by SNAP-Ed and other federally funded initiatives, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) High Obesity Programs (HOP). However, broader adoption and implementation of PSEs at the local level has lagged in some states for various reasons. These include limited understanding about PSE interventions and how this work fits with …

Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper offers a “more-than-representational” understanding of how heritage value is reproduced by cottage food businesses in Singapore. It advances the notion of haptic heritage to highlight the importance of touch and feel in inculcating food with a sense of heritage value. Haptic heritage is reproduced through the physical handling of ingredients in ways that contribute to more “authentic” products. However, it also foregrounds food production processes that are more tactile, time-consuming and thus unscalable than their automated counterparts. Accordingly, the reproduction of haptic heritage is becoming increasingly unviable in Singapore’s competitive economic landscape. These ideas are explored through a …

Neighborhoods Matter; But For Whom? Heterogeneity Of Neighborhood Disadvantage On Child Obesity By Sex, Ashley W. Kranjac, Catherine Boyd, Rachel T. Kimbro, Brady S. Moffett, Keila N. Lopez

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Although evidence suggests that neighborhood context, particularly socioeconomic context, influences child obesity, little is known about how these neighborhood factors may be heterogeneous rather than monolithic. Using a novel dataset comprised of the electronic medical records for over 250,000 children aged 2–17 nested within 992 neighborhoods in the greater Houston area, we assessed whether neighborhoods influenced the obesity of children differently based on sex. Results indicated that neighborhood disadvantage, assessed using a comprehensive, multidimensional, latent profile analysis-generated measure, had a strong, positive association with the odds of obesity for both boys and girls. Interactions revealed that the relationship between disadvantage …

Surgical Patients’ Hospital Experience Scores: Neighborhood Context Conceptual Framework, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac, Michelle A. Fortier, Pat Patton, Brad Giafaglione, Zeev N. Kain

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective:

Through geocoding the physical residential address included in the electronic medical record to the census tract level, we present a novel model for concomitant examination of individual patient-related and residential context-related factors that are associated with patient-reported experience scores.

Summary Background Data:

When assessing patient experience in the surgical setting, researchers need to examine the potential influence of neighborhood-level characteristics on patient experience-of-care ratings.

Methods:

We geocoded the residential address included in the electronic medical record (EMR) from a tertiary care facility to the census tract level of Orange County, CA. We then linked each individual record to the …

Environmentally Marginalized Populations: The "Perfect Storm" For Infectious Disease Pandemics, Including Covid-19, Gabriella Y. Meltzer, Oyemwenosa Avenbuan, Christina Awada, Oluwakemi B. Oyetade, Tricia Blackman, Simona Kwon Drph, Mph, Esther Erdei Phd, Judith T. Zelikoff Phd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

COVID-19 has exacted a severe toll on the United States population’s physical and mental health and its effects have been felt most severely among people of color and low socioeconomic status. Using illustrative case studies, this commentary argues that in addition to COVID-19 health disparities created by psychosocial stressors such as the inability to socially distance and access quality healthcare, environmental justice communities have the additional burden of disproportionate exposure to toxic contaminants that contribute to their higher risk of COVID-19. Environmental contaminants including heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants found contaminating their nearby environments can alter the immune response, …

Enabling Singapore's Youths To Adapt In An Era Of Climate Change, Thomas Menkhoff, Mark Chong, Benjamin Gan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Nudging them towards more eco-friendly behavioural habits is arguably a feasible approach to build greater climate resilience.

Project Coolbit: Can Your Watch Predict Heat Stress And Thermal Comfort Sensation?, Negin Nazarian, Sijie Liu, Manon Kohler, Jason Lee, Clayton Miller, Winston T. L. Chow, S. B. B. Alhadad, Alberto Martilli, Matias Quintana, Lindsey Sunden, Lindsey Norford

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Global climate is changing as a result of anthropogenic warming, leading to higher daily excursions of temperature in cities. Such elevated temperatures have great implications on human thermal comfort and heat stress, which should be closely monitored. Current methods for heat exposure assessments (surveys, microclimate measurements, and laboratory experiments), however, present several limitations: measurements are scattered in time and space and data gathered on outdoor thermal stress and comfort often does not include physiological and behavioral parameters. To address these shortcomings, Project Coolbit aims to introduce a human-centric approach to thermal comfort assessments. In this study, we propose and evaluate …

Place Branding As A Mode Of Urban Governance And Verticalisation: The Case Of Tokyo And New York, Z. Ruya Yuksel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how place branding activities are amalgamated into the urban governance policies and how skyscrapers are weaved into this process by studying two of the top ten most vertical cities in the world: Tokyo and New York.

Fascination with building up towards the sky is nothing new. Yet what is new is that skyscrapers are becoming as part of place branding strategies which are seeping into urban governance practices. Concepts of place branding, urban development, spatial planning and governance are now being discussed and understood as significant elements of the same process where branding informs configurations and development …

Microplastic Abundance, Composition And Distribution On Selected Beaches, Seafloor And In Marine Animals Of Perhentian Islands, Terengganu, Lim Ying Wei

Student Works (2020-2029)

Small pieces of plastic with sizes less than 5mm is known as microplastic. Accidental intake of microplastic could disturb an organism’s digestive and hormone systems. Of all the landscapes, islands are especially vulnerable to microplastic pollution due to their distinctive geographical and meteorological characteristics. Perhentian Islands in Terengganu state of Peninsular Malaysia was chosen as the study site for microplastic research as it harbours diverse marine species and consistently receives high number of tourist arrival. This project studies microplastic abundance attached to beach and seafloor sediments, within Acropora spp. coral, and in randomly collected marine animal carcasses during both Southwest …