Place and Environment Commons^™

Breath Back, Bronte Alston

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Breath Back is a collection of poems written throughout the first 18 months of a doctoral study based in the petro-state of Western Australia. As a Wadjela (non-Indigenous) climate justice activist-researcher, Alston adopts poetic autoethnography as an embodied, intuitive praxis to critically and reflexively examine limitations, positionality, power, privilege, and voice throughout their research process. This collection is deeply intertwined with Alston’s deepening connection to Country, specifically through the seasonal cycles of Wardandi Noongar Boodja (Country) in south-west Western Australia.

Setting Our Priorities Right: (Human) Security As Defined From The Bottom-Up, Zsófia Hacsek, David Curran, Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Anna Gillions

Peace and Conflict Studies Journal Conference

One of the most persisting challenges of the human security concept are to decide what issues should be prioritised, what resources should be used to solve them and by whom, and who bears responsibility for this process. In this discourse, it is crucial to involve voices from the bottom-up: UK residents whose lives are directly affected by the answers given to the above questions. Our research project, the Alternative Security Review, used a mixed-methods approach to find out what security means to individuals residing in the UK. We argue that their priorities should be taken into account in top-down decision-making …

When Words Flow Like Water: How The Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Environmental Impact Statement Failed To Prevent Hydrogeologic Harm In Minnesota, Carly Gutzmann

Journal of Earth and Life Science

For the aquifers of Minnesota, the environmental impact statement (EIS) was a promise of protection that never left the page. An environmental impact statement is meant to be an aid in the decision making process in order to ensure that projects consider potential environmental harms that may occur. However, they are often used instead as another regulatory box to check, rather than as active considerations when planning. As such, a project plan can be flawed from the start—if project developers only consider environmental impacts after they have already put considerable time, effort, and funding into their project as-is, they may …

Cultivating Diversity In Sustainable Food Systems: Black Farming And Lived Experience In Rural Southern Ontario, Kadeem Jerofy Morgan-Adamson Mr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research examines the lived experiences of Black food growers in rural Southern Ontario to understand how their perspectives challenge dominant narratives of rurality and inform broader discussions on food sovereignty in Canada. Grounded in postcolonial theory, the study highlights how historical dispossession and persistent inequities shape the access of Black communities to land and resources. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes surveys, semi-structured interviews, and reflexive journaling within a community-based research framework, the study documents the barriers Black food growers face. These include limited land access, insufficient funding, inadequate training pathways, and experiences of racial isolation in rural contexts. …

Resilience For Whom? A Study In Pathways And Production Of Unequal Risk In The Rockaways, Aaryan M. Nair

Publications and Research

This paper investigates how climate adaptation policies in the Rockaway Peninsula of New York City produce unequal outcomes despite their ostensibly neutral design, framing resilience as an environmental and climate justice problem. Situated within a landscape marked by stark socioeconomic disparities, aging housing stock, and high exposure to coastal flooding, the study demonstrates that existing adaptation strategies—centered on uniform technical standards, insurance frameworks, and large-scale coastal infrastructure—systematically advantage actors with greater financial and institutional capacity while leaving low-income residents, particularly renters, disproportionately vulnerable.

The analysis identifies three core dynamics underlying this “unequal-by-design” resilience regime: (1) the stratified feasibility of compliance …

“Wandering Between Two Worlds”: From One Marshall To Another, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This personal essay chronicles my journey from Marshall, Texas, where I lived for 14 years, to Marshall University, where I have taught for 17 years. I discuss not only the move itself, but a pivot from Victorian studies to Appalachian studies, a change I made so I could focus on the region in which I live. The essay’s central question is mentioned in the title: how long do I have to live here before I can call myself a West Virginian, and before others will regard me that way as well? Is 17 years enough? If not, will I eventually …

Perceptions And Metaperceptions Of Bison In The West, Riley Rush Comstock

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Effective coexistence between wildlife populations and the people that live with them requires an understanding of how people feel toward the species and their management. Bison occupy a unique place in conservation history and management. Once extirpated across nearly all of their range and only recently introduced to areas outside of large tracts of federal land, they are now a jurisdictionally challenged species, with varying management paradigms across a patchwork of landowners and managers. Recent research has shown how activating different social identities can distort people’s attitudes toward species. Here, I explore whether activating urban and rural identities distorts people’s …

“Black Students Matter”: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Student Experiences At A Predominately White Institution In Appalachia During The Dual Pandemic Of Covid-19 And Systemic Anti-Black Racism, Toni Owens

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As the spread of COVID-19 escalated into a global pandemic in 2020, simultaneously, the nationwide media in the United States (U.S.) highlighted coverage of the country’s ongoing incidents of longstanding systemic anti-Black racism in America, another pandemic. In the Summer of 2020, a collective of Black students at West Virginia University (WVU) signed and publicly submitted a petition to the university’s leadership with a list of demands to address their needs as they were further exacerbated by the dual pandemic. This study is guided by the question, “What are the lived experiences of Black Students at West Virginia University during …

Internationalization Struggles And Student Mobility: Ethnic Exclusion And Racism In Philippine Higher Education, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There is an extensive literature on student mobility that seeks to understand the nature of, rationales for and consequences of internationalisation in higher education. This scholarship primarily focusses on students studying in the ‘west’. This paper shows how ‘atypical’ student destinations also illuminate the contradictions of internationalisation, revealing the challenges faced by higher education settings beyond academic centres in the west. Drawing on the case of the Philippines, I discuss how private universities actively recruited international students to maximise profits from student tuition. Yet, these efforts led to a backlash among Filipino educators and students, prompting administrators to institute policies …

Karlup Bidi, Pathways Home, Len Collard, Sandra Wooltorton, Louisa Stredwick

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper uses karlup bidi (pathway home) as a metaphor to show and explain the cultural landscape of a significant central Perth locality: Kaart Gennunginyup Bo, or Karrgatup, or Kaarta Koomba, also known as King’s Park. Drawing on oral histories, cultural narratives and contemporary reflections, the study uses Noongar understandings of Country, family, time and relationship to challenge and decolonise Western paradigms of land use and identity. The intent is to narrate Noongar Boodja (Country) as it was, remains and always will be-as Noongar heartland. Central to this paper is the trilogy of boodja, moort, kaartdijin (Country, family, knowledge), a …

How I Cook With No Kitchen: An Investigation Of How #Microapartment Kitchens Are Depicted On Tiktok, Joelie Mandzufas, Karen Lombardi, Dorian Winter, Sarah Foster, Siobhan Hickling, Gina S.A. Trapp

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Physical constraints of small apartment kitchens and the influence of the surrounding community food environment may impact food practices of apartment residents. Social media portrayal of these features may influence public perception of apartment living. Aim: This project aimed to describe the public depiction of small apartment kitchen and cooking facilities. Methods: Content analysis of TikTok videos posted with small apartment-related hashtags was determined the portrayal of kitchen facilities, residents’ food practices, and hypothesised barriers to healthy cooking and eating practices. Current residents of small apartments compared these video depictions to their own experience. Results: We found TikTok videos …

Examining Challenges For Sociology Master’S Degree Students At California State University, David Ortuno

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify the lived experiences of CSU sociology graduate students pursuing a master’s degree. Seven sociology graduate students from six of the eight (75%) total sociology MA programs throughout the entire CSU system were interviewed. Their responses were designed to analyze the support systems and challenges they face while pursuing a master's degree, as well as to investigate whether their experiences correlate with or fail to correlate with the promises in the CSU mission statement, and to answer the study’s research questions and achieve the purpose of this qualitative study.

Four themes emerged from …

Hoarding And The Hoarded Home: A Phenomenological And Psychoanalytic Study, Brianna Stich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While research on hoarding tends to isolate hoarders from the homes they hoard and in which they live, the hoard and the hoarder share a life in the home. This study explores how hoarders live with and live through their hoard at home. It combines psychoanalysis and phenomenology within a unique methodological framework to provide a hermeneutic reading of the psychological significances of the hoarded home. In this study, the contemporary conceptualization of hoarding is historically situated and critiqued from a phenomenological perspective, and the view that hoarding is a single, behaviorally-defined syndrome that is explainable by a cognitive-behavioral model …

Exploring The Impact Of Inpatient Mental Health Care On Adolescents, Alexandria M. Mckahan

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Adolescent psychiatric hospitalizations continue to rise, yet there is limited research on which daily practices inside inpatient units genuinely support engagement and recovery. This project examined how structure, staff tone, and therapeutic programming influence adolescents’ participation and emotional stability within a real inpatient setting. The study focused on three questions: how structured routines affect recovery, what challenges staff face when supporting adolescents with complex needs, and how adolescents’ engagement patterns reflect their perception of care. Using a mixed-methods case study at Mesa Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, I conducted approximately twenty field observations, semi-structured staff interviews, and descriptive engagement tracking across …

Indigenizing Aquaculture: In Pursuit Of An Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture System For Enhanced Self-Sufficiency In Akaroa Harbour, Aotearoa New Zealand, Cali R. Trainor

Capstone Collection

This study assessed the feasibility of integrating two pre-existing aquaculture activities in Akaroa Harbour, Aotearoa New Zealand into an integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) system. The cultivation of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) presents an opportunity to improve the sustainability of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) farming by introducing alternative food sources for salmon, which can be used to produce fish feed locally, enhancing the self-sufficiency of the community and boosting the holistic efficiency of the system. Macroinvertebrates residing in giant kelp wrack were collected, identified, and quantified to determine if any of the Macrocystis-associated specimens could serve as …

How Does County Educational Composition Affect Mortality?, Heeyoung Lee, Tse-Chuan Yang

Population Health Research Brief Series

The gap in life expectancy between Americans with and without a bachelor's degree keeps growing. This brief summarizes findings from a study using data from the National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death files and the American Community Survey on 3,122 U.S. counties from 2010-2022. The authors find that a county's educational makeup creates divergent mortality effects for residents. For every 1% increase in bachelor's degree holders in a county, mortality declines by 4.5% for degree holders but increases by 1.2% for those without degrees. This pattern holds across heart disease, cancer, and stroke. The findings suggest that …

Book Review: Ecologies Of Inequity. How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race And Class Inequality, Abel Traslaviña-Arias

Critical Disaster Studies

In Ecologies of Inequity: How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race and Class Inequality, Sancha Doxilly Medwinter gathered diverse stories about how various migrant communities had to overcome not only disaster but also the overlapping networks established by those who were supposed to support them in 2012 in New York City. Medwinter portrays this contested post-disaster landscape through a thorough data recording of 120 individuals affiliated with various groups: racialized migrants or locals, tenants or property owners, local or external helpers, and those from wealthy or impoverished backgrounds. Ecologies of Inequity refer to the spatialized networks of organizational and interpersonal relations …

Does Investing In Schools Reduce Violent Crime?, Jamein Cunningham, Monique E. Davis, Kenneth Whaley

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Unravelling The Motivations For The Environmental Harm Posed By The Unsustainable Practices By The Apparel Industry In Ghana, William Boateng, Ronald Osei Mensah, Lillian Lamptey, Victor Fannam Nunfam

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The apparel industry in Ghana has increasingly come under scrutiny for its environmental footprint, particularly in the wake of rising concerns about ecological degradation. This study critically examines the motivations behind unsustainable practices within the industry, exploring how economic, cultural, and structural factors contribute to environmental harm. Using Routine Activity Theory (RAT) as a guiding framework, the research identifies key drivers of ecological damage, including the dominance of profit-driven decisions, market demand for fast apparel, limited awareness of sustainable practices, and challenges in accessing eco-friendly materials. Additionally, the study investigates how the apparel industry's operations exploit natural resources and fragile …

Sense Of Belonging And Student Success Among College Students, Sriram Tandri Mr

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Abstract

A sense of belonging and self-efficacy are vital needs of college students, both shown to be significant predictors for student success. Thus, our study will focus on academic performance and the contributing factors that might have a significant influence on overall student success rates. The purpose of the present project is to build upon prior research by developing a new measure in the field of social psychology, investigating the relationship between college students’ sense of belonging, combined with individual factors such as self-efficacy, and how they contribute to student success and academic performance. This study consists of a quantitative, …