Doctoral Dissertation Research: Institutional and Cultural Effects on Organized Risk Reduction Efforts

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This project investigates the dynamic processes through which diverse social groups (individuals, organizations, and organizational networks) come to understand the causes and consequences of land loss and come to define the range of options available for reducing its impacts. Additionally, this research investigates how culture affects the transformational potential of risk reduction actions. The setting for the research is a region with diverse communities and large and changing industries that is also suffering land loss that affects these communities and industries. This project analyzes efforts by a variety of organizations, groups, and individuals to counteract and cope with the land loss. Data for the project are being collected through ethnographic observation, interviews, and documents. Findings will increase understanding of collective decision-making on a large scale and on issues that have broad effects on public well-being.This research will seek to identify the conditions affecting the acceptance or rejection of particular risk framings and strategies and to explore how these dynamics relate to broader institutional forces that affect risk reduction. Data for this project are collected from legal, scientific, and media documents, key informant interviews, interviews of organizational actors involved in land loss risk reduction, and ethnographic observation of public and restorative events. Analysis of the data is through coding to ascertain patterns in use of cultural narratives by actors along with contextual details.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.