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

巨大的景观变化影响着人们与环境的关系。本文研究了南卡罗来纳州桑蒂·库珀水电系统大规模开发的文化观念。1938年至1942年间修建的水坝和湖泊极大地改变了当地的景观，并使许多长期居民流离失所。在此期间，大坝的推动者和当地人民对发展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联系在一起的。通过将文化模型方法与环境历史相结合，该研究描述并分析了人们（一方面是发起人，另一方面是普通的当地“居民”）是如何看待大型水坝建设对文化和自然景观的影响的。该研究将展示由政治和经济目标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，这些联系是由他们的文化理想和个人经历形成的。该研究通过将其领域扩展到历史发展，并将从原始历史文献中得出的文化模型与当代民族志数据进行比较，为认知人类学做出了贡献。这项研究的更广泛的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，该项目还促进了年轻社会科学家的教育。

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anthropology by extending its domain to historical developments and by comparing cultural models elicited from primary historical documents with contemporary ethnographic data.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.