Doctoral Dissertation Research: Non-Governmental Organizational Conflicts over Amazonian Nature

近几十年来，亚马逊地区的土著运动和来自美国及其他国家的非政府组织（NGO）越来越多地围绕环境和人权问题结成联盟。 这些跨国社会运动网络最初被描述为一致成功，但越来越多的研究强调了这种形式的行动主义所固有的政治问题。 然而，这些分析只侧重于土著群体与非政府组织之间的关系。 博士论文研究改进项目将探讨构成美国和其他发达国家土著人民宣传基础的环境和人权组织之间的关系。 更具体地说，该项目将调查亚马逊联盟成员组织之间的联系，亚马逊联盟是一个由环境、人权和土著组织组成的国际联盟，致力于保护土著人民的权利及其环境。 通过研究亚马逊联盟的九个创始成员组织从1990年到2002年的参与情况，本研究将确定是什么团结和分裂了这个社会运动网络中的外部联盟组织。 通过文件分析、与非政府组织工作人员和土著代表的访谈、调查和参与者观察，该项目将确定这些非政府组织最初合作成立亚马逊联盟的原因，以及随着时间的推移出现了哪些分歧。 该研究将调查的变化，在编程，联盟和语言，以表明存在差异的非政府组织在他们的理解某些概念的核心，这个社会运动网络。 将特别注意研究如何的含义，愿景和优先事项周围的土著“领土”的保护，“生物多样性”，并在亚马逊流域的“可持续性”的促进成员之间的根本不同。该项目将有助于社会运动理论和当前在政治学，社会学和地理学领域的努力，以调查话语，意义和社会运动动态之间的相互作用。 它将探讨亚马逊雨林这一地点的潜在含义的差异如何影响非政府组织关系的微观政治，以及这些差异是否可能实际上破坏联盟。 研究结果将有助于亚马孙流域的非政府组织专业人员和土著领导人，因为它提供了许多土著运动赖以发出政治声音的联系方面急需的信息。 这项研究可能有助于确定环保主义者和人权组织之间的联盟是一种短暂的现象，还是一种更持久的追求社会正义的工具。 这项研究的结果可能会加强亚马逊联盟成员与其他同类网络之间的联盟建设。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

In recent decades, indigenous movements in the Amazon and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the U.S. and other nations have increasingly formed alliances around environmental and human rights issues. These transnational social movement networks were initially described as uniformly successful, but growing numbers of studies have highlighted the problematic politics inherent to this form of activism. These analyses, however, have focused only on the relationships between the indigenous groups and the NGOs. Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement project will explore the relationships among the environmental and human rights organizations that constitute indigenous people's advocacy base in the U.S. and other developed nations. More specifically, the project will investigate associations among member organizations of the Amazon Alliance, an international coalition of environmental, human rights, and indigenous organizations working to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and their environment. By examining the involvement of the nine founding member organizations of the Amazon Alliance from 1990 to 2002, this research will determine what unites and divides the outwardly allied organizations in this social movement network. Through document analysis, interviews with NGO staff and indigenous representatives, surveys, and participant observation, this project will determine why these NGOs initially cooperated to form the Amazon Alliance and what points of divergence have developed over time. The research will investigate changes in programming, alliances, and language to show that differences exist among the NGOs in their understandings of certain concepts central to this social movement network. Particular attention will be given to examining how the meanings, visions, and priorities surrounding the defense of indigenous "territories," the preservation of "biodiversity," and the promotion of "sustainability" in the Amazon Basin vary radically between the member NGOs. This project will contribute to social movement theory and current efforts in the fields of political science, sociology, and geography to investigate the interplay among discourse, meaning and social movement dynamics. It will explore how differences in underlying meanings ascribed to a place, the Amazon rainforest, can impact the micro-politics of NGO relations and whether these differences may, in fact, destroy alliances. Study result will be useful to NGO professionals and indigenous leaders in the Amazon basin by providing much-needed information about the linkages so many indigenous movements have come to depend on for political voice. The study may help determine whether an alliance between environmentalists and human rights groups is an ephemeral phenomenon or a more durable vehicle to pursue social justice. The results of this research may strengthen coalition-building between members of the Amazon Alliance and other networks of its kind. 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.