Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community-Based Natural Resource Management for Wildlife

自20世纪70年代以来，落基山脉北部地区经历了一场人口迁移，通常被称为新西部或农村士绅化，来自该县其他地区的较富有的人迁入该地区，该地区历史上主要是白人人口，从事牧场和采掘土地用途，如采矿、能源勘探和伐木。人口转移的同时，出现了一些关于人与自然之间适当关系的冲突。大多数关于野生动物和自然资源管理的研究来自自然科学和应用自然科学领域，往往侧重于自然资源管理挑战的技术解决方案，或对野生动物态度的研究。现有的关于北美和欧洲野生动物冲突的学术研究侧重于解释人与人之间冲突为什么会发生并持续存在，而不是如何管理或解决这些冲突。该项目将研究落基山脉北部农村养牛区的一个非营利性组织，该组织使用公民科学和参与性自然资源管理方法来预防和缓解人与野生动物的冲突。该项目将提供与社会生活和政策的几个方面相关的调查结果。首先，通过研究一个成功的野生动物管理案例，该项目将有助于了解如何解决围绕野生动物管理的人类冲突和改善整体自然资源管理的社会组成部分。其次，该项目还将有助于理解农民和牧场主如何以及为什么采用可持续的野生动物管理方法。第三，该项目将展示公民科学如何提高参与式自然资源管理的有效性。最后，通过考察一个农村组织在一个分裂的地区促进合作的案例，并在一个导致两极分化的问题上，这项研究可以提供工具，以减少或解决更广泛的冲突。这个项目分析了一个组织如何使用参与性方法来促进在一个人类在野生动物管理和人类与自然的适当关系上发生冲突的地区减少人与野生动物的冲突。该项目将使用案例研究人种学来研究以社区为基础的自然资源管理的一个独特案例。该项目将对通过采访、观察、组织文件和政府数据获得的数据进行三角测量，以比较个人的描述和他们的行为，建立参与者如何随着时间的推移发展和实施野生动物管理实践的连贯叙述，并了解如何从不同的角度解释这一点。该项目将通过创建时间表、分析口头文本和过程跟踪来分析数据。该项目的发现将为可持续农业和自然资源管理、冲突和通融的社会学理论提供信息；它们还将为与社会认同和参与性民主有关的理论提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Since the 1970s, the Northern Rocky Mountains region has experienced a population shift, often referred to as the New West or rural gentrification, in which wealthier people from other parts of the county move into a region historically home to a mostly white population engaged in ranching and extractive land uses such as mining, energy exploration, and logging. The population shift has coincided with the emergence of a number of conflicts over the proper relationship between humans and nature. Most research on wildlife and natural resource management comes from the natural sciences and applied natural science fields, often focusing either on technical solutions to natural resource management challenges, or on studies of attitudes toward wildlife. Existing scholarship on wildlife conflicts in North America and Europe focus on explaining why conflicts between people occur and persist, but not how they can be managed or resolved. This project will study a non-profit organization in a rural cattle ranching area in the Northern Rocky Mountains that uses citizen science and participatory natural resource management methods to prevent and mitigate human-wildlife conflict. The project will provide findings relevant to several aspects of social life and policy. First, by studying a case of successful wildlife management, the project will contribute to understanding the social components of how to resolve human conflicts around wildlife management and improve overall natural resource management. Second, the project will also contribute to understanding how and why farmers and ranchers adopt sustainable wildlife management methods. Third, the project will show how citizen science can improve the effectiveness of participatory natural resource management. Last, by examining a case in which a rural organization has promoted cooperation in a region that is divided and on an issue that causes polarization, this study can provide tools for reducing or resolving conflicts more generally. This project analyzes how an organization uses participatory methods to facilitate human-wildlife conflict reduction in an area in which humans clash over wildlife management and the proper relationship of humans to nature in general. The project will use case study ethnography to study a unique case of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The project will triangulate data obtained through interviews, observations, organizational documents, and government data to compare individuals' accounts with their behavior, build a coherent narrative of how participants developed and implemented wildlife management practices over time, and to understand how this was interpreted from different vantage points. The project will analyze data by creating timelines, analyzing spoken texts and process tracing. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management conflict and accommodation; they will also inform theories relating to social identity and participatory democracy.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.