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

几十年来，美国的许多环保组织一直致力于保护西部的公共土地不受在西部生活和工作的人的侵害。然而，近年来，美国西部新兴的一些环保组织对这种观点提出了挑战。这些新的非政府组织支持国际环境组织长期支持的社区保护和参与性发展理念。这些组织试图在农村企业和环境利益之间建立政治联盟，将自然保护作为合法的经济关注，并将环境保护与生产活动之间的对立脱钩。随着以采掘业为主的“老西部”日益面临以旅游业为主的“新西部”，环境与经济之间复杂而动态的关系尤为突出。在20世纪90年代初西方的“工作与环境”之争之后，这些地区性非政府组织正日益重塑西方对自然与工作以及两者关系的理解。这个博士论文研究项目将探讨这些新ngo的工作人员和项目所在农村社区的居民如何在日常实践中协商和使用工作类别和性质。该项目将对三个西部地区非政府组织——索诺兰研究所、塞拉商业理事会和海岸银行太平洋——的行动进行详细的案例研究。研究将重点关注这些新兴非政府组织的起源，它们对国际保护与发展模式的采纳和适应程度，以及这些新兴非政府组织的理念和行动对农村社区生计和地方认同的影响。数据和信息将通过18个月的多地点人种学分析收集。研究方法包括参与观察；对NGO领导和工作人员以及当地居民进行调查和访谈；分析报告、内部组织文件、报纸文章和选举结果。该项目将有助于揭示美国西部机构和社区延续和转变保护和发展话语的具体实践和历史。该项目还将分析在美国越来越普遍的“社区保护”项目中，对环境、经济和地方的理解所构成的具体社会和文化实践。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为有前途的学生提供支持，使他们能够建立强大的独立研究事业。

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.