An ethnographic exploration of community engagement with proposals for Britain's first spaceport

对英国第一个太空港提案中社区参与的人种学探索

• 批准号: 2263555
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2263555
• 关键词: ethnographic; exploration; community; engagement; proposals

As plans move ahead to build The United Kingdom's first spaceport in the Scottish Highlands, I seek to understand how the world is shaped by divergent imaginations of the future. The spaceport itself is future-orientated; its development is tied to the future of the British Aerospace industry which has been impacted by Britain's proposed withdrawal from the European Union. Britain is widely considered a leader in the field of microsatellites and the government seeks to capitalise on growing demand in this sector by constructing launch facilities throughout the nation. However, sceptical crofters in the nearby village of Talmine have concerns about the impact of a spaceport on the future of their community and way of life. I am interested in the diverse 'imagined futures' of the many actors and stakeholders involved and how they shape and are shaped by the Sutherland Spaceport development. I will spend 12 to 18 months on the A'Mhoine Peninsula in the village of Talmine which is home to the Melness Crofters Estate. Using ethnographic methods and living among the crofters and other residents, I will build an accurate image of their daily lives. By participating in and observing their daily realities, I will construct the many 'imagined futures' that the locals of the A'Mhoine Peninsula envision. Alongside this research I will conduct structured and semi-structured interviews with spaceport personnel to grasp their understandings of the project and the images of the future they see tied to its completion.My main focus is to understand how people, groups, institutions and industries envision, plan, resist or prepare for change. The future, an inherently 'imagined' place, holds great sway over the present. The United Kingdom finds itself in ta situation where the future constantly debated, with Brexit, a potential second Scottish independence referendum and climate change all collapsing into the present and the everyday lives of British residents in significant ways. It is through these 'imagined futures' that national plans are forecast; the spaceport on the A'Mhoine Peninsula is just one of the many plans moving a head to create a future that is desirable over potentially dreadful possible alternatives.I ask, how do people organise their lives in ways both to plan for what they think the future will be and to influence what direction it will take? The findings of this study will highlight the interrelationships between various stakeholders in the development of the spaceport project and thus may help shape policy regarding consultation processes for similar developments in the future. The study will also advance interdisciplinary discussions around methodological issues related to studying 'the future' empirically, a growing area of interest within the social sciences. As this study encompasses the relationships between people, governments, scientific knowledge, technology, the environment and commercial markets, dissemination of the research findings will aim for broad public engagement. The insights from this research will help demonstrate how the imagination plays a key role in decision making, both at the individual level to large scale government development.

随着在苏格兰高地建造英国第一个太空港的计划的推进，我试图了解世界是如何被对未来的不同想象所塑造的。航天港本身是面向未来的;其发展与英国航空航天工业的未来息息相关，英国航空航天工业受到英国退出欧盟的影响。英国被广泛认为是微型卫星领域的领导者，政府试图通过在全国各地建造发射设施来利用这一领域不断增长的需求。然而，附近塔尔明村持怀疑态度的佃农担心太空港对他们社区的未来和生活方式的影响。我感兴趣的是参与其中的许多参与者和利益相关者的各种“想象的未来”，以及他们如何塑造萨瑟兰太空港的发展。我将在塔尔明村的A 'Mhoine半岛度过12到18个月，那里是Melness Crofters庄园的所在地。我将使用民族志的方法，在佃农和其他居民中生活，建立他们日常生活的准确形象。通过参与和观察他们的日常现实，我将构建许多“想象的未来”，当地的A 'Mhoine半岛设想。除了这项研究，我还将对航天港的工作人员进行结构化和半结构化的采访，以了解他们对项目的理解以及他们对项目完成后的未来的看法。我的主要重点是了解人们、团体、机构和行业如何设想、计划、抵制或准备变革。未来，一个内在的“想象”的地方，对现在有着巨大的影响。英国发现自己处于未来不断辩论的情况下，英国脱欧，潜在的第二次苏格兰独立公投和气候变化都以重要的方式崩溃到现在和英国居民的日常生活中。正是通过这些“想象中的未来”，国家计划才得以预测;在阿姆霍因半岛上的太空港只是众多计划中的一个，这些计划旨在创造一个令人向往的未来，而不是潜在的可怕的可能性。我问，人们如何组织自己的生活，既为他们认为的未来做计划，又影响未来的走向？这项研究的结果将突出各利益攸关方在航天港项目开发中的相互关系，从而有助于制定有关未来类似开发的咨询程序的政策。这项研究还将推进跨学科的讨论，围绕与实证研究“未来”相关的方法论问题，这是社会科学中一个日益增长的兴趣领域。由于这项研究涵盖了人民、政府、科学知识、技术、环境和商业市场之间的关系，因此传播研究结果的目的是争取广泛的公众参与。这项研究的见解将有助于证明想象力如何在决策中发挥关键作用，无论是在个人层面还是大规模的政府发展。