Doctoral Dissertation Research: Forest engineers, bureaucrats, and the constitution of information

博士论文研究：森林工程师、官僚和信息的构成

• 批准号: 1823929
• 负责人: Elizabeth Povinelli
• 金额: $ 0.67万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823929&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Forest; engineers

The production of accurate and reliable information about rainforests and other difficult-to-survey environments constitutes an enduring challenge for state bureaucrats, scientists, and engineers. Yet the grounded processes through which key environmental information is produced have received little study. The research supported by this award takes up this problem through an anthropological investigation of the technical and bureaucratic practices through which state environmental information is created, transmitted, and applied.The research will be carried out by Columbia University doctoral student, Eduardo Romero Dianderas, with oversight from Dr. Elizabeth A. Povinelli. The researcher will focus on the work of engineers and bureaucrats in the Amazonia region of Loreto, Peru, as a case study. He will collect data at multiple points in the chain of information production and application. In the field, he will document how engineers conduct research to generate technical data about the region. In state and associational offices, he will follow the engineering data as they are communicated to bureaucrats and as bureaucrats deploy them for technical judgments and public decisions. Research methods will include participant observation, analysis of paper and digital documents, and semi-structured interviews. This approach will shed light on what technical and bureaucratic environmental information includes and what it excludes, such as the knowledge and perspectives of indigenous inhabitants of these environments. It will also clarify the relevant communicative and technological infrastructures. Findings from this research will help policy makers determine the potentials and limitations of the data on which they base their policies. The research also will contribute to building more robust theories of the production, communication, and comprehension of scientific data.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

产生有关雨林和其他难以调查的环境的准确可靠的信息对国家官僚、科学家和工程师来说是一个持久的挑战。然而，产生关键环境信息的基础过程却很少受到研究。 该奖项支持的研究通过对国家环境信息创建、传输和应用的技术和官僚实践进行人类学调查来解决这个问题。该研究将由哥伦比亚大学博士生爱德华多·罗梅罗·迪安德拉斯（Eduardo Romero Dianderas）在伊丽莎白·A·波维内利（Elizabeth A. Povinelli）博士的监督下进行。 研究人员将重点关注秘鲁洛雷托亚马逊地区工程师和官僚的工作作为案例研究。他将在信息生产和应用链的多个点收集数据。在现场，他将记录工程师如何进行研究以生成有关该地区的技术数据。在州和协会办公室，他将跟踪向官僚传达的工程数据，以及官僚将这些数据用于技术判断和公共决策。研究方法包括参与观察、纸质和数字文档分析以及半结构化访谈。这种方法将阐明技术和官僚环境信息包括哪些内容以及排除哪些内容，例如这些环境中土著居民的知识和观点。它还将澄清相关的通信和技术基础设施。 这项研究的结果将帮助政策制定者确定他们制定政策所依据的数据的潜力和局限性。该研究还将有助于建立更强大的科学数据的产生、传播和理解理论。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。