Doctoral Dissertation Research: Non-Governmental Organizations, Communities, and Environmental Protection in the American West

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For decades, many environmental groups in the United States have focused on their efforts on what they perceived as the need to protect the public lands in the West from the people who live and work in the West. In recent years, however, an emerging set of environmental organizations in the western U.S. has challenged this perspective. These new non-governmental organizations (NGOs) support ideas of community conservation and participatory development long favored by international environmental organizations. These organizations attempt to build political alliances between rural businesses and environmental interests by framing the protection of nature as a legitimate economic concern and by decoupling the opposition between environmental protection and productive activity. The complex and dynamic relationship between environment and economy is particularly salient as the "Old West" of extractive industry increasingly is confronted by a "New West" that emphasizes tourism. In the wake of the western "jobs versus environment" debate of the early 1990s, these regional NGOs increasingly are reshaping western understandings of nature and work and the relationship between the two. This doctoral dissertation research project will explore how the categories of work and nature are negotiated and employed in the everyday practices of the staff of these new NGOs and the residents of the rural communities where their projects are located. This project will conduct detailed case studies of the actions of three western regional NGOs, the Sonoran Institute, the Sierra Business Council, and Shorebank Pacific. The research will focus on the origins of these new NGOs, the degree to which these organizations have adopted and adapted international models of conservation and development, and the impacts of the ideas and actions of these new NGOs on livelihoods and local identities in rural communities. Data and information will be gathered through eighteen months of multi-site ethnographic analyses. Research methods to be employed include participant observation; surveys and interviews with NGO leaders and staff as well as with local residents; and analyses of reports, internal organizational documents, newspaper articles, and election results. This project will help shed light on the specific practices and histories through which institutions and communities in the American West have perpetuated and transformed discourses of conservation and development. The project also will analyze the specific social and cultural practices through which understandings of environment, economy, and locality are constituted in the increasingly common "community-based conservation" projects appearing throughout the U.S. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.