RUI: Disposition: The Army Corps of Engineers and the Reimagining of the Upper Mississippi River

该奖项为一个为期两年的项目提供资金，该项目旨在研究陆军工程兵团（ACE）目前正在进行的大型研究。2018年，ACE正式开始重新构想上密西西比河，当时国会要求该机构进行处置研究，以审查继续运营三个不再符合其授权目的的联邦项目的成本和效益。ACE的多年研究将询问美国公众从联邦政府对这些项目的运作中获得了什么价值。由该奖项资助的为期两年的项目旨在真实的及时告知和塑造ACE的参与和决策过程。该研究将记录，解释和实验与ACE的上密西西比河处置研究的公众参与过程。该研究将通过面向公众的努力，包括项目网站和当地研讨会的介绍，增加社会对这些挑战的理解。研究结果将与圣路易斯和新奥尔良的下游密西西比研究小组分享。此外，该团队还将与艺术家合作，创造一个名为“照亮锁”的多媒体沉浸式夜间公共艺术装置，旨在开启关于河流未来的新对话。该项目还通过一套基于课程的模块和夏季研究奖学金提供密集的本科生培训机会。学生将由一个跨学科的学术团体指导，该学术团体深入投资于基于社区的研究和公共参与的奖学金。该项目提出了三个主要问题：ACE如何让不同的公众参与考虑上游流域的船闸和水坝提供的价值？哪种参与模式可以打开或关闭未来河流的保护区？其他形式的参与如何通过参与更具包容性的审议形式来帮助决策？该项目进行了三个阶段的定性研究，以解决这些问题。研究小组将回顾最近在肯塔基州、格鲁吉亚和缅因州进行的规模较小的ACE处置研究的公开过程和结果。他们还计划观察，记录和分析2020-2021年ACE处置听证会上提供的格式和证词。最后，该小组将设计一系列的焦点小组，通过一系列的上密西西比步行，骑自行车和由明尼阿波利斯和圣保罗的专家导游带领的桨船游览，垂直记录公众舆论。这个研究项目协同STS奖学金的两个令人兴奋的领域：关键基础设施理论和公众参与研究。在河流工程和ACE处置研究的背景下，研究将探讨传统的行政实践的局限性，以及STS干预如何引导机构走向更具包容性，反思性和创造性的公众参与。该研究团队将在《科学文化》和《环境规划》等期刊上发表同行评议的文章，并在开放获取期刊《开放河流》上发表特刊。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award provides funds for a two-year project that aims to study a large study that is currently being conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE). In 2018, ACE officially began its process of reimagining the Upper Mississippi River when Congress charged the agency to conduct a disposition study to examine the costs and benefits of continuing to operate three federal projects which no longer serve their authorized purposes. ACE’s multiyear study will ask what value the American public derives from the federal government’s operation of these projects. The aim of the two-year project that is being funded by this award aims to both inform and shape the ACE’s engagement and decision-making process in real time. The research will document, interpret and experiment with public engagement processes around the ACE’s Upper Mississippi River disposition study. The research will increase the societal understandings of these challenges through its public facing efforts, including a project website and presentations of local seminars. The findings will be shared with downriver Mississippi research groups in St. Louis and New Orleans. In addition, the team will work with artists to create a multimedia, immersive night-time public art installation called “Illuminate the Lock” that seeks to open new conversations about the river’s future. The project also provides intensive undergraduate training opportunities through a suite of course-based modules and summer research fellowships. Students will be mentored by an interdisciplinary academic group who are deeply invested in community-based research and publicly engaged scholarship.The project asks three main questions: How is the ACE engaging diverse publics in considering what value locks and dams provide in the upper basin? Which modes of engagement open up or close down imaginings of a future river? How might alternative forms of participation aid policymaking by engaging more inclusive forms of deliberation? The project pursues three stages of qualitative research to address these questions. The research team will review the public processes and outcomes of recent, smaller ACE disposition studies in Kentucky, Georgia and Maine. They also plan to observe, record and analyze the format and testimony delivered at ACE disposition hearings in 2020-2021. Finally, the team will design a series of focus groups that serve to perpendicularly record public opinion through a series of Upper Mississippi walking, biking and Paddleboat excursions led by expert guides in Minneapolis and St. Paul. This research project synergizes two exciting areas of STS scholarship: critical infrastructural theory and public engagement studies. In the context of river engineering, and ACE disposition studies, the research will examine both the limitations of conventional administrative practice and how STS interventions can steer agencies toward more inclusive, reflexive and creative public engagement. The research team will publish peer reviewed articles in journals such as Science as Culture and Environmental Planning, as well as a special issue of the open access journal Open Rivers.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.