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Researcher(s):
Alex Groher-Jick
ENVS course(s): 350 Initiated: April 2016 Completed: April 2016 Go to project site
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Framing Question: How does acknowledgment of interconnectivity/scale (globally or between disciplines) effect policies? Good or bad? How are these weighed against one another (facts vs values)?
Background:
Cosmopolitanism
Cash et al. prescribe many scales that should be considered in governance and problem solving, including spatial, temporal, and knowledge (2008). All of these scales play role in the ongoing debate around logging and forest management in Douglas County.
For a green modernity to be possible “people have to conduct and understand their lives in exchange with others and no longer exclusively in an interaction with their own kind” (Beck 2010).
Popular views of nature prevent democratic politics and promote post-politics: a rejection of “ideological divisions and the explicit universalisation of particular political demands” (Swyngedouw 2010).
Douglas County
County formerly dependent on a thriving timber industry
Now economically decimated because of industry decline
50% of land owned by government
Industry and environmental interests are looking for solutions to economic degradation
Focus Question: : To what degree do Douglas Country politics (specifically logging related) acknowledge scalar interconnectivity?
Discussion:
Conclusions:
Localism
There are clearly many issues effecting the Timber Economy besides local happenings, yet all parties involved focus almost exclusively on things going on in Southwest Oregon.
As Heise and Beck warn, this localism seems to be harmful to progress, as it necessitates ignorance of much of what is going on.
The popular desire to return to the way things were or keep things the same ignores the effects of external changes changes.
Knowledge
Regarding acknowledgment of different knowledge, all parties claim to look through a socioeconomic-environmental lens- this seems to be merely an effort to greenwash or give credit to their rational, given they only use the knowledge that suits them.
As Swyngedouw and Beck discuss, people with different ideas need to interact in order to problem solve, this is not happening.
Broader Implications:
Resource dependent economies are strongly effected by the outside world and are fragile. As such they, of all communities, should pay as much attention as possible to cosmopolitan ideals.
Area of Further Study:
Comparative analysis of political/economic efforts in other resource dependent communities that have been more successful than Douglas County.
Issues with Research:
Due to time constraints, could not interview members of political entities, as such research was based off of what they put on their websites and their public statements.