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

许多美国人宣称，比起传统燃料，他们更喜欢可再生能源，然而，实际的可再生能源项目却经常遭到所在社区的反对。对环境破坏和审美破坏的抱怨是对任何不受欢迎的开发项目的常见反应，将清洁能源与保护土地和景观、记忆和身份对立起来。这给政策制定者、科学家和关注可持续发展的社区提出了重要的问题：符合公共利益意味着什么？谁有权定义这种利益？这些定义可能通过什么方式出现或被强加？加州大学欧文分校（University of California, Irvine）的博士生Alyse Bertenthal将在Mona Lynch博士的指导下，通过一个案例研究来解决这些问题，该案例研究最近提出的一项开发百万板太阳能农场的提案，该提案在一个长期为土壤、矿物和水的分配和管理而苦苦争取的地区引发了重大争议。研究人员将采用混合方法，包括访谈、参与观察、GIS/GPS测绘和法庭文件的历史分析，以阐明法律、社会和环境如何随着时间的推移而相互作用。从民族志和历史两方面考察这些争议，使研究人员能够阐明个人和群体在就土地和资源的法律主张进行谈判时如何将自己构建为“公众”。通过资源管理解开公共身份的建构和争论，该项目将有助于理解人们定义自己的话语、逻辑和实践；他们如何把自己的过去和未来放在特定的地方；以及法律如何调节这些过程。这项研究的结果将为决策者制定一个更可持续发展的美国所面临的挑战，以及必须维持这些政策的人所面临的挑战提供见解。

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.