Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Spatialization in the Atchafalaya Basin

在世界各地，越来越多的私人和公共资源被用于文化和生态旅游，将其作为一项发展战略，旨在创造收入，同时保护当地环境和文化。边缘化地区寻求在发展与保持其独特性之间取得平衡，所有这些都是在一个自相矛盾地看重差异同时促进同质化的后工业化经济中进行的。这项研究表明，在协商这些相互冲突的目标和价值观时，一个地区的居民和外来游客都参与了复杂的“社会空间化”表演，从而赋予了地方特殊的意义。在路易斯安那州的阿卡迪亚纳地区，试图通过文化和生态旅游来保护该地区的文化和环境的努力一直伴随着相当大的政治争议。虽然从历史上看，这一地区在社会和环境上处于边缘地位，但在过去的40年里，种族认同重新抬头，人们对保护当地湿地环境的兴趣日益浓厚。今天，阿查法拉亚河流域以各种方式成为自然资源、荒野、旅游和民族遗产的空间。这些想象中的场所属性是通过对场所的表征和场所中的主观经验的融合而构建的。为了评估这些猜测，这项研究将比较三个主要来源的定性结果：文学和流行媒体；公共范围和采访；以及各种沼泽之旅的体验。这项研究将深入了解游客如何在沼泽中谈判卡津人的种族，以及如何将阿查法拉亚人的概念与当地和代表性的知识进行比较。结果将有助于研究在历史上处于边缘地位的地区将场所营销作为一种经济发展战略日益突出的文献。这项研究还希望重新激发人们对卡津文化的兴趣，以便研究人员能够更好地解决该地区的语言损失、投资减少和文化商品化等问题。分析将揭示参与旅游业的个人如何构建和阐明支撑这种经济的地方神话。这些发现将为阿卡迪亚纳或其他地方的导游、规划者和任何对环境和文化保护感兴趣的人提供信息。该奖项将使一个有前途的学生提高他的论文研究，并建立一个强大的独立研究事业。

Around the world, increasing private and public resources are being devoted to cultural and eco-tourism as a development strategy designed to generate revenues while preserving local environments and cultures. Marginalized regions have sought to balance development with preservation of their distinctiveness, all within a post-industrial economy that paradoxically values difference while facilitating homogenization. This research suggests that while negotiating these conflicting goals and values, both residents of a region and tourists from outside engage in complex performances of "social spatialization" whereby they give particular meanings to place. In Louisiana's Acadiana region attempts to preserve the region's culture and environment through cultural and eco-tourism have been accompanied by considerable political contestation. Though historically this region was socially and environmentally marginalized, the last forty years have seen a resurgence of ethnic recognition and a growing interest in protecting the local wetland environment. Today, the Atchafalaya River Basin is characterized in a variety of ways as a space of natural resources, wilderness, tourism and ethnic heritage. These imagined attributes of place are constructed through a melding of representations about a place and subjective experiences in a place. In order to assess these conjectures, the research will compare qualitative findings from three major sources: literature and popular media; public scoping and interviews; and the experience of a variety of swamp tours. The study will give insight into how Cajun ethnicity is negotiated in the swamp for visitors and how this notion of the Atchafalaya compares to local and representational knowledges. Results will inform contribute to the literature that investigates the increased prominence of place-marketing as an economic development strategy in historically marginalized regions. This study also hopes to reinvigorate interest in Cajun culture so that researchers can better address issues such as language loss, disinvestment, and cultural commodification in the region. Analysis will reveal the ways in which individuals involved in tourism construct and articulate the place myths that undergird this economy. The findings will inform guides, planners, and anyone interested in environmental and cultural preservation in Acadiana or elsewhere. The award will enable a promising student to improve his dissertation research and to establish a strong independent research career.