Doctoral Dissertation Research: Law, the Environment, and the Social Construction of Public Interest

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Many Americans proclaim a preference for renewable energy over traditional fuel sources, yet actual renewable-energy projects frequently draw opposition from communities in which they may be sited. Complaints of environmental damage and aesthetic blight are common responses to any unwanted development project, pitting the clean energy against the preservation of land and landscape, memory, and identity. This raises important questions for policymakers, scientists, and communities concerned with sustainable development: What does it mean to be in the public interest? Who has authority to define that interest? And through what means might such definitions emerge or be imposed?University of California, Irvine, doctoral student, Alyse Bertenthal, under the supervision of Dr. Mona Lynch, will address these questions through a case study of a recent proposal to develop a million-panel solar farm that has generated significant controversy in a region that has long struggled over the allocation and management of its soil, minerals, and water. The researcher will use a mixed methods approach, including interviews, participant observation, GIS/GPS mapping, and the historical analysis of court documents to shed light on how laws, society, and the environment have interacted over time. Examining these disputes both ethnographically and historically allows the researcher to elucidate how individuals and groups construct themselves as "the public" as they negotiate legal claims to land and resources. By untangling constructions and contestations of public identity through resource management, this project will contribute to efforts to understand the discourses, logic, and practices through which people define themselves; how they situate their pasts and futures in particular places; and how law mediates these processes. Findings from this research will provide insight into the challenges confronted by policymakers legislating a more sustainable America and by the people who must sustain such policies.