Cultural and Consensus Models of Climate Change Adaptation for Chesapeake Bay

迈克尔·保利索博士（马里兰大学）、雪莉·菲斯克博士（马里兰大学）和苏珊·克拉特博士（乔治梅森大学）将对气候变化的当地文化模型进行为期两年的研究。这项研究将在切萨皮克湾东岸的三个社区进行。尽管气候变化的科学理论被广泛接受，如《联合国气候变化框架公约》，但气候变化也是一种局部建构，从个性化的角度来解释，可能会因人们的文化、社会经济、地理空间和时间位置而有所不同。大多数关于公众对气候变化理解的信息来自民意调查，而不是深入的社区研究。该项目将有助于系统的民族志研究，以了解不同群体如何思考、理解和解释气候变化现象，以及为适应气候变化而提出的政策。这三个社区与切萨皮克湾资源的经济关系各不相同（如水工、农民或岸边居住的退休人员），并且面临气候变化影响的风险，特别是海平面上升。在每个社区，研究人员将采访居民，收集有关气候变化及其影响的认知领域信息，并为切萨皮克湾地区提出适应措施。在从这些数据中开发出社区层面的认知模型之后，文化共识分析技术将用于测试社区内部和社区之间，以及社区理解与作为补救计划和政策基础的理解之间的共享知识和模型重叠程度。多变量分析将用于评估文化模型知识、当地环境条件和社会经济背景对社区理解和支持气候变化适应政策的影响。该项目旨在了解受到气候变化不利影响的严重威胁的不同社区如何理解气候变化，以及他们的信仰在多大程度上和在什么水平上是共同的。该项目将为当地社区、县规划者和州政府办公室提供信息，帮助他们应对不断变化的环境；它将加深我们对公众对环境问题的看法和公众为适应这些问题所必须采取的行动的理解；它将为人类学家应用文化模型方法研究环境问题提供理论和方法上的见解。

Dr. Michael Paolisso (University of Maryland), Dr. Shirley Fiske (University of Maryland), and Dr. Susan Crate (George Mason University) will undertake a two-year study of local, cultural models of climate change. The research will be conducted in three communities on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Although there are widely held scientific theories of climate change, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, climate change is also a local construct, interpreted from individuated perspectives that may vary depending on people's cultural, socioeconomic, geospatial, and temporal location. Most information on public understandings of climate change comes from public opinion polls, and not from in-depth community studies. This project will contribute systematic, ethnographic research to understand how diverse groups of people think about, understand, and interpret the phenomenon of climate change, and the policies proposed to adapt to it.The three communities will be chosen to vary in their economic relation to Chesapeake Bay resources (as watermen, farmers, or shore-dwelling retirees), and to be at-risk from climate change effects, particularly sea-level rises. In each community, the researchers will interview residents and collect cognitive domain information about climate change, its impacts, and proposed adaptations for the Chesapeake Bay region. After developing community-level cognitive models from these data, cultural consensus analytical techniques will be used to test the extent of shared knowledge and model overlap within and between communities, and between community understandings and those that underlie remediation programs and policies. Multivariate analyses will be used to assess the impacts of cultural model knowledge, local environmental conditions, and socioeconomic contexts on community understanding and support of climate change adaptation policies.The project addresses the need to understand how diverse communities under severe threat of adverse effects from climate change understand climate change and to what extent and at what levels their beliefs are shared. The project will provide information for local communities, county planners, and state offices as they confront a changing environment; it will deepen our understanding of the public perceptions of environmental issues and public actions necessary to adapt to them; and it will provide theoretical and methodological insights for anthropologists applying cultural model approaches to environmental issues.