Dissertation Research: Local Environmental Practice and Global Ecology: A Juxtaposition of the Environmental Ethics Debates in Houston and Shenzhen

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This dissertation research will examine and juxtapose environmental debates characteristic of two cities, Houston, Texas and Shenzhen, People's Republic of China (PRC). The research will address the ethical concerns inherent in ecological effects of global economic systems predicated on the aggressive development of science and technology. Having completed fieldwork in Houston, the dissertation student will spend a year in the PRC, developing an ethnographic geography of the cultural forms of everyday life within the context of preexisting social and spatial structures. The fieldwork will involve networking, a survey of Shenzhen intellectuals, in-depth interviews, archival research, and mapping exercises. Expected results will include an outline of the general domains and terms of the environmental ethics debates there and an analysis of how the attitudes of the Shenzhen intelligensia toward the social use of science and technology inform their ethical positions. The information from the studies in Houston and Shenzhen will also provide a basis for analyses of how social relationships and status, as well as status within the world economic system, influence the ability of individuals, groups, regions, and nations to participate in debates about environmental ethics.