Doctoral Dissertation Research: Food Security, Heritage, and Sustainability in Urban Contexts

该奖项支持的研究调查了利用粮食遗产作为发展跳板的城市可持续发展倡议的创建和后果。这个项目考察了社区团体是如何基于对过去的不同概念来构建理想城市的不同愿景的。了解如何评估、阐明和汇聚这些愿景，对于追求粮食安全、将社区风险降至最低以及确保城市地区的长期可持续性至关重要。该项目除了为人类学研究生提供经验、科学数据收集和分析方法方面的培训提供资金外，还将让广泛领域的城市社区团体参与合作发展倡议。它还将提供对遗产在为不同群体如何协商发展计划提供信息方面所起的作用的洞察，对从事城市发展工作的规划者具有重要影响。该研究项目将由马里兰大学人类学博士生Ellen Platts在Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels博士的指导下进行。在美国西南部的一个地点，正在创建基于食物和文化的可持续城市发展倡议，该项目探索了在未来规划中如何谈判可持续发展的政治。研究问题集中在食物遗产对不同群体意味着什么，如何看待和追求食物遗产在发展中的应用，以及对可持续城市存在哪些不同的愿景。数据将通过半结构化访谈、参与者观察和档案研究来收集。调查结果将有助于改善基层社区组织、市政府和私人投资者等行为者在发展中利用遗产的基础过程的理论和实践理解。这一奖项反映了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。

The research supported by this award investigates the creation and consequences of urban sustainability initiatives that use food heritage as a springboard for development. This project examines how community groups are building divergent visions of what the desired city looks like based on different conceptions of the past. Understanding how to evaluate, articulate, and bring together these visions is essential to pursuing food security, minimizing risk to communities, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of urban places. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project will engage a broad cross-section of urban community groups engaged in a collaborative development initiative. It will also provide insight into the role heritage plays in informing how different groups negotiate development programs, with significant implications for planners working in urban development. The research project will be carried out by University of Maryland anthropology doctoral student Ellen Platts, under the supervision of Dr. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels. At a site in the Southwestern United States where sustainable urban development initiatives based on food and culture are being created, this project explores how the politics of sustainability are negotiated in planning for the future. The research questions center on what food heritage means for different groups, how its use in development is perceived and pursued, and what different visions for a sustainable city exist. Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and archival research. Findings will contribute to improved theoretical and practical understandings of the processes that underlie the use of heritage in development, by actors such as grassroots community organizations, municipal governments, and private investors.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.