Doctoral Dissertation Research: Knowledge Resources in the Building of Ecological Restoration Communities

该研究项目调查了陆地社区和生态理论家网络，以分析用于建设致力于生态恢复和可持续发展的社区的战略范围。它具体询问这些社区利用哪些知识来源，以及如何将这些知识来源整合到生态恢复工作中。该项目旨在扩大对社区为适应环境变化而采用的一系列生态恢复战略和知识资源的了解。调查结果和数据将通过学术途径以及公共讲习班和通过管理研究材料的在线档案来传播。该项目除了为培训一名人类学研究生提供资金，使其掌握经验科学数据收集和分析方法外，还将促进非学术团体参与科学生产过程和科学方法的科学认识。这篇博士论文的重点是两个群体，他们关心的是建立社区，对环境变化的影响作出反应，并从事生态恢复，并从人类学理论中获得他们的话语很大程度上。这一背景为研究人类学公民科学如何转化为生态恢复努力提供了一个独特的窗口。在为期12个月的实地考察过程中，研究人员将探索社会结构，决策过程，这些社区与原住民社区的外部关系，以及他们的生态实践，通过参与者观察，核心参与者队列中的焦点小组访谈，以研究集体决策实践，以及半结构化访谈和生活史，以了解个人生活经历。分析技术包括访谈和档案数据的话语和文本分析。该项目将为理解非国家主权运动对环境变化的作用和反应做出可推广的贡献。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 research project investigates land-based communities and a network of ecological theorists to analyze the range of strategies that are utilized in building communities committed to ecological restoration and sustainability. It specifically asks what knowledge sources these communities draw upon, and how those knowledge sources are integrated, in ecological restoration efforts. The project aims to expand understandings of the range of ecological restoration strategies and knowledge resources that communities marshal in adapting to environmental change. Findings and data will be disseminated through scholarly avenues as well as public workshops and through the curation an online archive of research materials. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project would enhance scientific understanding engaging non-academic groups in the process of scientific production and the scientific method. This doctoral dissertation focuses on two groups that are concerned with building communities that are responsive to the effects of environmental change and engaged in ecological restoration, and which derive their discourse largely from anthropological theory. The context provides a unique window into the study of how anthropological citizen science is translated into ecological restoration efforts. Over the course of twelve months of fieldwork, the researcher will explore the social structure, decision-making processes, the external relationships these communities have with Indigenous communities, and their ecological practices through participant observation, focus group interviews among a core cohort of participants to examine collective decision-making practices, and semi-structured interviews and life histories to understand individual lived experiences. Analytical techniques include discourse and textual analysis of interview and archival data. The project would make generalizable contributions to understand the role and response of non-state sovereign movements to environmental change.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.