Dissertation Research: Cultural Models, Landscapes, and Large Dams: A Cognitive and Historical Approach to Environmental Change

大规模的景观变化影响着人们与环境的关系。 本论文研究探讨南卡罗来纳州桑蒂库珀水电系统大规模开发的文化观念。 1938年至1942年的水坝和湖泊建设极大地改变了当地的景观，并使许多长期居民流离失所。 在这段时间里，水坝的推动者和当地人采用了特定的认知模式。 这个项目分析了这些认知模型是什么以及它们是如何关联的。 通过将文化模型方法与环境历史相结合，本研究描述和分析了人们-一方面是推动者，另一方面是普通的当地“乡亲”-如何认为景观，无论是文化还是物理，都受到了大坝建设的影响。 该研究将展示由政治和经济目标所造成的现代化如何反映在人类与当地景观的认知和文化联系中，这些景观是由他们的文化理想和个人经历塑造的。该研究通过将其领域扩展到历史发展，并通过比较从原始历史文献中得出的文化模型与当代民族志数据，为认知人类学做出了贡献。研究的更广泛影响包括社会对大型环境项目影响的新知识的兴趣，这将对规划者和管理者以及公众有用。此外，该项目还促进了青年社会科学家的教育。

Massive landscape changes affect how people relate to the environment. This dissertation research investigates the cultural perceptions of the large-scale development of the Santee Cooper hydroelectric system in South Carolina. This construction of dams and lakes in the years 1938-1942 greatly altered the local landscape and displaced many long-time residents. During this time, the promoters of the dams and the local people employed particular cognitive models with regard to the development. This project analyzes what these cognitive models were and how they were related. By combining a cultural models approach with environmental history, the study describes and analyzes how people - the promoters on one hand, and ordinary local "folks" on the other - thought the landscape, both cultural and physical, was affected by the building of the large dams. The research will show how modernization, wrought by political and economic goals, is reflected in humans' cognitive and cultural associations with the local landscape as shaped by their cultural ideals and personal experience. The research contributes to cognitive anthropology by extending its domain to historical developments and by comparing cultural models elicited from primary historical documents with contemporary ethnographic data. The broader impacts of the research include the interest society has in new knowledge about the impact of large-scale environmental projects, which will be useful to planners and administrators as well as to the public. In addition the project advances the education of a young social scientist.