Student: Rebecca Kidder
Graduation date: May 2016
Type: Area of Interest (double major)
Date approved: November 2013
Summary
My second major in Hispanic studies has given me multiple tools that have proven to be useful when looking at environmental problems, solutions, and ideas. First and foremost, it has given me a cultural perspective that serves as a reminder that every issue is complicated and is influenced by many factors. It has given me a historical context in which I can analyze various environmental issues throughout Latin America. It has trained me in analyzing Hispanic literature, a tool that has transferred to an improved ability in analyzing all literature, including scholarly articles. And finally, it has solidified my ability to communicate with others, both in Spanish as well as in English. My experience abroad also sparked a new area of interest for me: how people experience sense of place. There are a lot of themes that could be applicable: I’ve selected themes based on potential specific situated contexts that I may want to study, which will be explained in the following paragraph. Especially relevant themes will consider how some aspect of a culture or location affects how people from that region interact with some aspect of the ecosystem. One major theme connecting the two majors is “Land Use/Cover Change.” This theme looks at how land use changes over time. By situating this in a specific place, such as Latin America, I can study how land use has evolved over time in the region, and try to understand what it is about this area of the globe that has affected this change in land use. A second major theme connecting the majors is “Environmental Attitudes and Behavior.” While this theme focuses on individuals and rarely compares cultures, it is useful for understanding why some people act the way they do towards their surroundings. These attitudes and behaviors arise from a variety of sources, many culturally and historically based. As Hispanic studies is a major about the culture and history of Latin America, this theme could be very interesting. A third theme that connects with both majors is “Recreation and Environment.” This theme looks at how people interact with their surroundings for recreational purposes. It explores how people interact with undeveloped, preserved areas, as well as areas changed in order to promote and satisfy recreation.
While this major allows me to look at a wide variety of issues, I am interested in studying people’s connection to landscape. Beyond looking at how landscape changes over time, I am interested in how the public may react to such a changing landscape. It is important to note how this differs from my previous area of interest that I wrote about in fall of 2014: at that point, my primary focus was looking at why landscapes change, whereas now I am primarily interested in how people react to such a changing landscape. I am curious about how a person’s sense of place may relate to their familiarity with certain characteristics of the landscapes they may find themselves in. Stemming from a familiarity with the area (Williams et al. 1992), sense of place has been shown to be a significant factor in a person’s personality. A highly attuned sense of place has been found to correspond with higher levels of community engagement, as well environmental action (McCunn & Grifford 2014). People’s identities are often connected to their sense of place (Proshanksy et al. 1983), and, perhaps predictably, changes in landscapes due to natural disasters have been found to upset those living there (Silver & Grek-Martin 2015). I want to see if there is any correlation between a person’s ability to adapt to a new type of landscape, and the scale of differences found in the characteristic elements of their previous and current surroundings. One example of a currently changing landscape can be found in South America. Historically, much of the land use change in the region has been attributed to agricultural development. Most agricultural lands were converted from grasslands, leaving forests relatively intact until the last century (Houghton 1994). As the world has become more interdependent, creating a global demand for South American resources, changes in land use in Latin America have had increasing effects in other regions across the globe (Grau et al. 2008). Each of the above-listed themes relate to this topic of changing landscapes: “Land Use/Cover Change” addresses how the breakup of preserved and unpreserved areas has changed over time, “Environmental Attitudes and Behavior” looks at why the people who change the land use may do so, and “Recreation and Environment” explores how people in the region interact with the land that surrounds them. Two related ideas arise out of this concept: the first looking at how people respond to a changing landscape; the second looking at how this response may vary in different parts of the globe. These both raise similar questions: are people aware of changes in their landscape? Is there a difference in people’s reaction when the change occurs gradually versus suddenly? How does a changing landscape affect a person’s sense of place, and relatedly, how does a person’s sense of place affect their sense of self? While this could be situated in many locations, I see potential in utilizing two groups of people: the first being first-year and transfer students at Lewis & Clark, as many of these students are adjusting from previously living in other parts of the country and world, often with landscapes quite distinct from those found in Portland, Oregon; the second being students currently abroad in Valparaíso, Chile (where I studied abroad, and thus where I have a number of contacts), many of whom are again experiencing landscapes quite distinct from those with which they are familiar. This represents a rapid change in landscape that, although not caused by a deteriorating environment, could offer insight towards how people react to changes in their surroundings, specifically in their surrounding landscapes.
References
Grau, H. Ricardo, and Mitchell Aide. 2008. “Globalization and Land-Use Transitions inLatin America.” Ecology and Society 13 (2). http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art16/.
Houghton, R. A. 1994. “The Worldwide Extent of Land-Use Change.” BioScience 44 (5) (May 1): 305–313. doi:10.2307/1312380.
McCunn, Lindsay J., and Robert Gifford. 2014. “Interrelations Between Sense of Place, Organizational Commitment, and Green Neighborhoods.” Cities 41, Part A (December): 20–29. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2014.04.008.
Proshansky, Harold M., Abbe K. Fabian, and Robert Kaminoff. 1983. “Place-identity: Physical World Socialization of the Self.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 3 (1) (March 1): 57–83. doi:10.1016/S0272-4944(83)80021-8.
Silver, Amber, and Jason Grek-Martin. 2015. “‘Now We Understand What Community Really Means’: Reconceptualizing the Role of Sense of Place in the Disaster Recovery Process.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 42 (June): 32–41. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.01.004.
Williams, Daniel R., Michael E. Patterson, Joseph W. Roggenbuck, and Alan E. Watson. 1992. “Beyond the Commodity Metaphor: Examining Emotional and Symbolic Attachment to Place.” Leisure Sciences 14 (1) (January 1): 29–46. doi:10.1080/01490409209513155.
Questions
- Descriptive: How have various landscapes changed over time? Are people aware of changes in their surrounding landscapes? Does this awareness depend on whether or not the person is experiencing other major changes in their lives at the same time? Is there a difference in people’s reaction when the change occurs gradually versus suddenly? How do people describe a changing landscape? How do environmental attitudes differ throughout various cultures? What is the relationship between a person’s culture and their environmental attitudes? What is the relationship between a person’s culture and how they respond to changes in surrounding landscapes?
- Explanatory: How does a changing landscape affect a person’s sense of place, and relatedly, how does a person’s sense of place affect their sense of self? Why do people move between various landscapes? How does a changing landscape affect a person’s emotions? What is the relationship between a person’s culture and how they experience the land around them? Why do people decide to recreate in some areas over others? How does this decision differ from person to person?
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- HIST 141 (Colonial Latin American History, 4 credits), fall 2014. This course looks at the colonial history of Latin America, which can be used to analyze how environmental attitudes and behavior developed in relation to historical events in the region.
- HIST 142 (Modern Latin American History, 4 credits), spring 2016. This course looks at recent history in Latin America, which can be used to analyze current environmental attitudes and behavior in the region in relation to historical events.