My thesis has changed a bit over the past week just in time for the first draft deadline on Friday. At this stage in the game I am analyzing Bruno Latour’s idea of a new bicameral system (that he lays out in Politics of Nature) to see if it can provide a framework to better address the dam controversy in the Klamath Basin.
All of the negotiations that happened before the settlement agreements were signed reminded me a lot of the bouncing back and forth between the Latour’s Upper and Lower Houses. Everyone seemed to be on equal footing at the over 80 public meetings that were held during the negotiations. All of the parties even came up with a pretty good way to address their issues (considering the scope) which was presented as the settlement decisions. It seems like where all of that was really ignored was during the NEPA process.
So far, I have come up with tentative players for each of the four roles that Latour identifies in his framework: the scientists, the politicians, the economists, and the moralists.
- Scientists – federal science agencies (like the USGS)
- Politicians – concerned parties/stakeholders
- Moralist – political representatives/members of Congress
- Economists – federal management agencies (like the BOR and FWL)
I will elaborate on scientists as an example:
Skills (p. 138-42):
- the ability to provide instruments and equipment (perplexity)
- ability to get ahead of controversy (consultation)
- imagining possibilities while offering heterogeneous innovations and compromises (hierarchy)
- make irreversible what has long been the object of controversy (institution)
- autonomy of scientists (separation of powers)
- they no longer have to play it alone (scenarization of the totality)
This is just a very vague outline (in Latour’s words) and I will have to work to integrate them into the Klamath case study. I am unsure about whether I can do this and whether the activity will be beneficial.
It’s time to get some guidance.
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