Doctoral Dissertation Research: Petro-Politics at the Grassroots: Big Oil, Environmental Education and Governance in Brazil

布朗大学博士生Paula S. Dias将在Jessaca Leinaweaver博士的指导下，研究与石油开采相关的经济发展项目如何影响和阐明当地政治和社会动态。由于一些政府将发展责任作为经营成本委托给资源开采公司，这些开采活动的影响往往以意想不到的方式扩大。该项目将追踪这些影响是如何被理解和经历的，以及这些影响揭示了地方政治进程及其与更普遍的高层政治的关系。这项研究将在巴西进行，在那里，政府对石油开采的监管与强制性的社区一级、石油公司资助的环境教育（EE）项目相结合。迪亚斯将在位于巴西东北部的非洲人后裔（“黑人”）社区Quilombo da Rasa进行为期12个月的人种学研究。她将从两个层面收集情感表达与社区政治之间关系的数据：(1)更广泛层面的政治实践和与国家机构的关系；(2)更微观层面的社区社会动态。她将采用多种社会科学研究方法，包括参与观察、访谈和档案研究。这项研究的结果将有助于社会科学理论的政治过程如何在整个关系链中发挥作用，从国家机构到社区一级的权力动态。这项研究还将帮助决策者理解更广泛的治理逻辑，这些逻辑将资源开采的战略利益与进步的环境立法和国家对公司的监管联系起来。资助这项研究支持了研究生的教育。

Brown University doctoral student Paula S. Dias, guided by Dr. Jessaca Leinaweaver, will undertake research on how economic development projects linked to oil extraction affect and illuminate local politics and social dynamics. As some governments delegate development responsiblities to resource extraction corporations as a cost of doing business, the effects of these extraction activities are broadened, often in ways that are unanticipated. This project will trace how these impacts are understood and experienced and what these impacts reveal about local political processes and their relation to higher level politics more generally. The research will be conducted in Brazil, where government regulation of oil extraction is coupled with mandatory community-level, oil company-funded Environmental Education (EE) projects.Dias will carry out 12 months of ethnographic research in Quilombo da Rasa, a community of Afro-descendants ("maroons") located in northeast Brazil. She will collect data on the relationship between EE and community politics at two levels: (1) the broader level of political practices and relations with state agencies; and (2) the more micro level of community social dynamics. She will employ a mix of social science research methods including participant observation, interviews, and archival research. Findings from this research will contribute to social science theory of how political processes work throughout the chain of relationships, from national institutions to community-level power dynamics. The research also will help policy makers to understand the broader logics of governance that bridge strategic interests of resource extraction with progressive environmental legislation and state regulation of corporations. Funding this research supports the education of a graduate student.