A Political Ecology of Value: A Cohort-Based Ethnography of Urban Social Policy

社会科学的研究表明，有效的城市政策必须在社会、经济和环境因素之间取得微妙的平衡。在世界上一半以上的人口现在居住在城市的世界里，找到这种平衡是至关重要的，因为糟糕的城市规划和管理可能会对经济增长、公共卫生、总体福祉和环境质量造成代价高昂的后果。近年来，许多美国城市都表现出了基础设施故障的影响：经济投资疲软、社会动荡和疾病爆发。但是，尽管影响是显而易见的，但解决方案却不是。在该奖项支持的研究中，人类学家约书亚·B·费舍尔博士(高点大学)和亚历克斯·纳丁博士(爱丁堡大学)将通过在城市背景下进行创新研究来解决这个问题，城市环境下的政策选择和相对较小的规模的试验历史将特别揭示什么有效，什么无效，对谁和为什么。研究人员将前往尼加拉瓜马那瓜郊区的桑迪诺市。最近，为了应对日益加剧的收入不平等、城市环境恶化以及旅游业和外商投资收入的下降，该市开展了一场新的、跨部门的综合城市发展运动--“生活清洁、生活健康、生活美丽、生活得好”。研究人员将研究这一计划对废物管理、环境教育、食品安全和公共健康等问题的复杂影响。他们将通过一套人种学研究方法收集数据，包括人种学访谈、参与者观察、照片记录和档案分析。除了这些更传统的研究方法外，研究人员还将通过创建和跟踪纵向人种学队列来互动和动态地收集数据。通过三年的一系列研讨会，包括政策制定者、教师和非正规经济食品生产者和垃圾拾取者在内的各种公民将被要求就这些计划如何影响他们和他们的世界向彼此和研究人员提供反馈。这项研究的结果将提供对形成有效的城市社会政策和成功城市的发展的因素的洞察，因为它们有许多纠缠在一起的社会、经济和环境维度。

Research in the social sciences has shown that effective urban policy must strike a delicate balance between social, economic, and environmental considerations. In a world where over half of the world's population now lives in cities, finding this balance is crucial because poor urban planning and management may have costly consequences in economic growth, public health, general well-being, and environmental quality. In recent years, a number of American cities have exhibited the effects of infrastructural failures: flagging economic investment, social unrest, and disease outbreaks. But while the effects are clear, the solutions are not. In the research supported by this award, anthropologists Dr. Joshua B. Fisher (High Point University) and Dr. Alex Nading (University of Edinburgh) will address the problem through innovative research in an urban context whose history of experimentation with policy alternatives and relatively small size, will be particularly revealing of what works, what does not, for whom, and why. The researchers will travel to Ciudad Sandino, a section of peri-urban Managua, Nicaragua. Recently, in response to increased income inequality, urban environmental degradation, and declining revenues from tourism and foreign investment, the city has undertaken a new, cross-sector, integrated urban development campaign, "Live Clean, Live Healthy, Live Beautiful, Live Well." The researchers will examine the complex impacts of this program upon matters of waste management, environmental education, food safety, and public health. They will collect data with a suite of ethnographic research methods including ethnographic interviews, participant observation, photo documentation, and archival analysis. In addition to these more traditional research methods, the researchers will also collect data interactively and dynamically by creating and following a longitudinal ethnographic cohort. Through a series of workshops over three years, a diverse array of citizens including policy-makers, teachers, and informal economy food producers and garbage pickers will be asked to provide feedback to each other and to the researchers on how the programs are affecting them and their worlds. Findings from this research will provide insight into the factors that shape the development of effective urban social policy and successful cities, given their many entangled social, economic, and environmental dimensions.