Doctoral Dissertation Research: Knowledge Networks and Development Information Translation across Scales

这项研究旨在了解人们如何应对环境变化，以及为什么他们会这样做。将思想从一种环境转化为另一种环境的挑战是任何发展干预的核心。了解知识如何在不同的文化背景和治理水平之间流动，以及如何调动知识来影响特定的选择和结果，对于设计和实施有效的社会环境问题解决方案至关重要。研究人员越来越意识到，影响知识、决策和行动的关系不仅仅是人类个体之间的关系。气象事件、环境特征、技术和基础设施、图形表示和其他因素也会影响知识的共享、解释和应用。从地方和区域到国家和国际，这种复杂的关系关系在多个相互作用的尺度上起作用，使得很难预测特定干预措施的效果，这对政策制定者和试图应对不断变化的世界的当地人来说都是一个具有挑战性的问题。由该奖项资助的研究将调查在特定的环境适应项目背景下，是否可以通过更仔细地观察这些因素和尺度的相互作用来识别一般的预测原则。这项研究将由乔治亚大学的博士生Jacob Weger在J. Peter Brosius博士的指导下进行。韦格将把数据收集的重点放在《湄公河三角洲计划》（Mekong Delta Plan）中包括的地区。《湄公河三角洲计划》是一项荷兰-越南倡议，概述了一个可持续发展的百年计划。世界上很少有地区像湄公河三角洲那样受到气候变化的威胁，海平面上升已经把该地区变成了一个以微咸为主的环境。在这个充满挑战的环境中，研究一个全面的计划是如何运作的，提供了一个独特的研究机会。韦格将在多个管理层级的地点进行人种学研究：荷兰、越南和湄公河三角洲的一个沿海省份。他将使用一系列方法收集数据：深度访谈、文件分析、会议、研讨会和农业实践的参与者观察以及社会网络分析。这些数据将用于构建连接各级治理以及影响农民决策的网络的广义模型。我们的目标是了解当知识影响当地决策时，它是如何在这些层面上移动和解释的。本研究的结果将有助于理解知识网络、翻译政治和其他物质条件和制约因素如何影响对发展干预措施的反应。结果将与包括地方社区在内的各级参与者分享，以便他们也能对发展规划和政策作出有效贡献。

This research seeks to understand how people respond to environmental change and why they respond as they do. The challenge of translating ideas from one context to another is at the heart of any development intervention. Understanding how knowledge moves between different cultural contexts and levels of governance, and how it is mobilized to influence particular choices and outcomes, is crucial to devising and implementing effective solutions to socio-environmental problems. Researchers are becoming increasingly aware that knowledge, decision-making, and action are influenced by relations beyond just those between individual human actors. Meteorological events, environmental characteristics, technologies and infrastructures, graphic representations, and other factors also affect how knowledge is shared, interpreted, and applied. This complicated nexus of relationships, which acts at multiple and interacting scales from local and regional to national and international, makes it difficult to predict the effects of particular interventions, a challenging problem for both policy makers and for local people who are trying to cope with a changing world. The research funded by this award will investigate whether general predictive principles can be discerned by looking more closely at the interaction of these factors and scales in the context of a specific environmental adaptation project. The research will be conducted by University of Georgia doctoral student, Jacob Weger, under the supervision of Dr. J. Peter Brosius. Weger will focus data collection on areas included in the Mekong Delta Plan, a Dutch-Vietnamese initiative outlining a 100-year plan for sustainable development. Few regions of the world are as threatened by climate change as the Mekong Delta where rising sea levels already are transforming the area into a predominantly brackish environment. Looking at how a comprehensive plan actually works in this challenging environment provides a unique research opportunity. Weger will conduct ethnographic research at sites spanning multiple levels of governance: the Netherlands, Vietnam, and a coastal province of the Mekong Delta. He will collect data using a suite of methods: in-depth interviews, document analysis, participant observation of meetings, workshops, and farming practices, and social network analysis. These data will be used to construct generalized models of the networks linking levels of governance, as well as those that influence farmer decisions.The goal is to understand how knowledge moves and is interpreted across these levels as it influences local decision-making. Findings from this research will contribute to understanding how knowledge networks, translation politics, and other material conditions and constraints shape response to development interventions. Results will be shared with participants at all levels, including local communities, so that they, too, may contribute effectively to development planning and policy.