Dissertation Research--Highway Paving, Governance and Deforestation in the Brazilian State of Acre

虽然修建新道路有望改善以前与世隔绝的农村和城市社区获得商品和服务的机会，但它也可能带来不利的环境和社会后果，包括毁林和农村小农在外来殖民化和土地投机的压力下流离失所。发展理论家争论政府是否有能力防止公路铺设带来的这些潜在影响。本文是一名文化人类学家的研究项目，将结合空间和民族志技术来研究巴西阿克里的道路铺设、治理和土地利用之间的关系。通过使用遥感方法，该项目将展示如何将卫星图像与民族志研究结合起来。政治生态学领域通常旨在将政治-经济过程与环境变化联系起来，但往往更能解释这种关系的政治-经济方面，而不是环境方面。该研究项目将展示遥感可以帮助克服这种不平衡的方法，使政治生态学家能够在研究过程中更好地解释和测量环境变化。更广泛的影响：巴西亚马逊地区的森林砍伐主要源于政府的投资和激励措施。这项研究的问题是，旨在遏制森林砍伐的新的政府政策和项目是否可以抵消以前和正在进行的促进森林砍伐的项目。如果该项目在阿克的跨洋高速公路上发现这是正确的，它将支持边境治理可以是管理公路走廊土地利用和土地覆盖变化的有效方法的论点。如果研究未能找到治理与可持续土地利用之间的关系，它将支持反对治理作为管理土地利用变化的有效手段的反驳论点。在这种情况下，这项研究要么支持停止在巴西亚马逊地区铺路的论点，要么更现实地说，投资新的战略来管理铺路道路沿线的土地利用变化。无论如何，这些新知识对发展规划者是有用的。此外，该项目还支持一名年轻社会科学家的教育。

While the construction of new roads promises to improve access to goods and services among previously isolated rural and urban communities, it also can bring about negative environmental and social consequences, including deforestation and the displacement of rural smallholders under pressure from external colonization and land-speculation. Development theorists debate the capacity of governance to prevent these potential repercussions from highway paving. This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropologist will combine spatial and ethnographic techniques to study the relationships between road paving, governance and land use in Acre, Brazil. Through the use of remote sensing methods, the project will demonstrate how satellite imagery can be combined with ethnographic research. The field of political-ecology generally aims to link political-economic processes and environmental change, yet is often better equipped to explain the political-economic than the environmental side of this relationship. The research project will demonstrate ways in which remote sensing can help to overcome this imbalance, allowing political-ecologists to better account for and measure environmental change in the research process.Broader Impacts: deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has stemmed largely from government investments and incentives. This research asks whether new government policies and programs aimed at stemming deforestation can counteract previous and continuing programs that have promoted it. If the project finds this to be true along Acre's Trans-Oceanic Highway, it will support arguments that frontier governance can be an effective way to manage land use and land cover change in highway corridors. If the research fails to find a relationship between governance and sustainable land use, it will support counter arguments against governance as an effective means of managing land use change. In this case, the research would support either the argument to halt road paving in the Brazilian Amazon or, more realistically, to invest in new strategies to manage land use change along paved roadways. In any case the new knowledge will be useful for development planners. In addition the project supports the education of a young social scientist.