Doctoral Dissertation Research: Knowledge Networks and Development Information Translation across Scales

博士论文研究：知识网络与跨尺度发展信息翻译

• 批准号: 1658421
• 负责人: J Brosius
• 金额: $ 1.33万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-02-01 至 2018-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1658421&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Knowledge; Networks

This research seeks to understand how people respond to environmental change and why they respond as they do. The challenge of translating ideas from one context to another is at the heart of any development intervention. Understanding how knowledge moves between different cultural contexts and levels of governance, and how it is mobilized to influence particular choices and outcomes, is crucial to devising and implementing effective solutions to socio-environmental problems. Researchers are becoming increasingly aware that knowledge, decision-making, and action are influenced by relations beyond just those between individual human actors. Meteorological events, environmental characteristics, technologies and infrastructures, graphic representations, and other factors also affect how knowledge is shared, interpreted, and applied. This complicated nexus of relationships, which acts at multiple and interacting scales from local and regional to national and international, makes it difficult to predict the effects of particular interventions, a challenging problem for both policy makers and for local people who are trying to cope with a changing world. The research funded by this award will investigate whether general predictive principles can be discerned by looking more closely at the interaction of these factors and scales in the context of a specific environmental adaptation project. The research will be conducted by University of Georgia doctoral student, Jacob Weger, under the supervision of Dr. J. Peter Brosius. Weger will focus data collection on areas included in the Mekong Delta Plan, a Dutch-Vietnamese initiative outlining a 100-year plan for sustainable development. Few regions of the world are as threatened by climate change as the Mekong Delta where rising sea levels already are transforming the area into a predominantly brackish environment. Looking at how a comprehensive plan actually works in this challenging environment provides a unique research opportunity. Weger will conduct ethnographic research at sites spanning multiple levels of governance: the Netherlands, Vietnam, and a coastal province of the Mekong Delta. He will collect data using a suite of methods: in-depth interviews, document analysis, participant observation of meetings, workshops, and farming practices, and social network analysis. These data will be used to construct generalized models of the networks linking levels of governance, as well as those that influence farmer decisions.The goal is to understand how knowledge moves and is interpreted across these levels as it influences local decision-making. Findings from this research will contribute to understanding how knowledge networks, translation politics, and other material conditions and constraints shape response to development interventions. Results will be shared with participants at all levels, including local communities, so that they, too, may contribute effectively to development planning and policy.

这项研究旨在了解人们如何应对环境变化，以及为什么他们会做出这样的反应。 将各种想法从一种情况转化为另一种情况的挑战是任何发展干预措施的核心。了解知识如何在不同的文化背景和治理层次之间流动，以及如何调动知识来影响特定的选择和结果，对于设计和实施有效的社会环境问题解决方案至关重要。 研究人员越来越意识到，知识、决策和行动受到的影响不仅仅是个人行为者之间的关系。气象事件、环境特征、技术和基础设施、图示和其他因素也影响知识的分享、解释和应用。这种复杂的关系网，从地方和区域到国家和国际，在多个相互作用的层面上发挥作用，因此很难预测特定干预措施的效果，这对决策者和努力科普不断变化的世界的当地人民来说都是一个具有挑战性的问题。该奖项资助的研究将调查是否可以通过更密切地关注这些因素和尺度在特定环境适应项目中的相互作用来识别一般预测原则。 这项研究将由格鲁吉亚大学博士生雅各布·韦格在J·彼得·布罗修斯博士的监督下进行。Weger将重点收集湄公河三角洲计划中包括的地区的数据，这是一项荷兰-越南倡议，概述了可持续发展的100年计划。世界上很少有地区像湄公河三角洲那样受到气候变化的威胁，海平面上升已经将该地区转变为主要的咸水环境。看看一个全面的计划如何在这个充满挑战的环境中实际工作提供了一个独特的研究机会。Weger将在多个治理级别的地点进行民族志研究：荷兰，越南和湄公河三角洲的一个沿海省份。他将使用一套方法收集数据：深入访谈，文件分析，参与者观察会议，研讨会和农业实践，以及社会网络分析。这些数据将用于构建连接各级治理以及影响农民决策的网络的通用模型，目的是了解知识在影响地方决策时如何在各级传播和解释。 本研究的结果将有助于理解知识网络、翻译政治以及其他物质条件和限制如何塑造对发展干预的反应。将与包括地方社区在内的各级参与者分享成果，使他们也能有效地为发展规划和政策作出贡献。