Doctoral Dissertation Research: Forest engineers, bureaucrats, and the constitution of information

关于热带雨林和其他难以调查的环境的准确可靠的信息的生产构成了国家官僚，科学家和工程师的持久挑战。然而，对产生关键环境信息的基础过程却鲜有研究。 该奖项支持的研究通过对国家环境信息创建、传输和应用的技术和官僚实践的人类学调查来解决这个问题。该研究将由哥伦比亚大学博士生Eduardo Romero Dianderas在Elizabeth A.波维内利 研究人员将集中在工程师和官僚的工作在亚马逊地区的洛雷托，秘鲁，作为一个案例研究。他将在信息生产和应用链的多个点收集数据。在现场，他将记录工程师如何进行研究，以生成有关该地区的技术数据。在州和协会办公室，他将跟踪工程数据，因为它们被传达给官僚，并作为官僚部署他们的技术判断和公共决策。研究方法将包括参与观察，分析纸质和数字文档，以及半结构化访谈。这一方法将有助于了解技术和官僚环境信息包括哪些内容，不包括哪些内容，例如这些环境的土著居民的知识和观点。它还将澄清相关的通信和技术基础设施。 这项研究的结果将有助于决策者确定他们制定政策所依据的数据的潜力和局限性。该研究也将有助于建立更强大的理论的生产，通信和科学数据的理解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

The production of accurate and reliable information about rainforests and other difficult-to-survey environments constitutes an enduring challenge for state bureaucrats, scientists, and engineers. Yet the grounded processes through which key environmental information is produced have received little study. The research supported by this award takes up this problem through an anthropological investigation of the technical and bureaucratic practices through which state environmental information is created, transmitted, and applied.The research will be carried out by Columbia University doctoral student, Eduardo Romero Dianderas, with oversight from Dr. Elizabeth A. Povinelli. The researcher will focus on the work of engineers and bureaucrats in the Amazonia region of Loreto, Peru, as a case study. He will collect data at multiple points in the chain of information production and application. In the field, he will document how engineers conduct research to generate technical data about the region. In state and associational offices, he will follow the engineering data as they are communicated to bureaucrats and as bureaucrats deploy them for technical judgments and public decisions. Research methods will include participant observation, analysis of paper and digital documents, and semi-structured interviews. This approach will shed light on what technical and bureaucratic environmental information includes and what it excludes, such as the knowledge and perspectives of indigenous inhabitants of these environments. It will also clarify the relevant communicative and technological infrastructures. Findings from this research will help policy makers determine the potentials and limitations of the data on which they base their policies. The research also will contribute to building more robust theories of the production, communication, and comprehension of scientific data.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.