Researcher(s):
Hannah Smay
ENVS course(s): 350 Initiated: April 2016 Completed: April 2016 Go to project site
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For the Environmental Theory course, praxis is an opportunity to ground the theories we read grapple with in practice. Using Douglas County, Oregon as a case study, we investigated different aspects of theory (reality, knowledge, ethics, and politics) by engaging with different citizens and histories of a real life place. See my posts for more information regarding our field trip, my project, and the process of merging theory with on-the-ground research.
Abstract: In her article "Landscape as a Provocation," Doreen Massey engages with the viewpoint that an human interaction with nature is an inherent loss. In conversation with the debated perception of science and the social skills of environmental leaders attempting to inspire a different future, I use theories of knowledge to ask: How do communities use knowledge to cope with loss?
In Douglas County, restrictions on human interventions with nature are seen as an inherent loss. After a logging boom that sustained the county coffers of Douglas County from the 1950s through the 1980s, the community has experienced a significant economic downturn that persists. However, different demographics in this heterogeneous community conceptualize this loss through different stories which inform their visions for the future. Scientific knowledge, social knowledge, and historical knowledge each play a key role in these stories. How do residents of Douglas County use different types of knowledge in their visions for the future? I investigate this question through informal interviews with various leaders throughout the community, observation of the city center landscape with a focus of breweries, and analysis of primary sources. I found that knowledge can be commodified and politicized to create various narratives of progression, collapse, or progression contingent on collapse.