As I am pulling together the last strings of my poster, I am struggling (and for the most part succeeding) to clearly explain the top and bottom of my hourglass. AKA the part about perspectives of knowledge. In part, I was struggling to fit my focus question back into my framing. Finally, with Jim’s prompting, I simplified my questions so that I could coherently answer them. Here’s how they ended up: Framing – How can privileged perspectives of knowledge be oppressive? Focus – How have environmental policies affected Douglas County?
This helped significantly, and I was able to both organize my literature and methodology better, as well as create an opportunity to add another component. In order to demonstrate what the separate perspectives of knowledge actually are, I pulled one quote from Environment Oregon, who has an office in Portland, and the Douglas Timber Operators, based out of (believe it or not) Douglas County.
Environment Oregon actually pulled this quote from the 1964 Wilderness Act, but demonstrated agreement with the perception within:
“these special places should be areas ‘where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain’”
I pulled the second quote from a Timber Industry Report from the Douglas Timber Operators :
“Without thinning, severe wildfires are inevitable…A predictable path through this complexity of regulation is needed, for the improvement of forest health and decrease of summer smoke and wildfire.”
These quotes helped me to understand how and why urban perceptions of environment have been used to dictate environmental policy in urban areas. In particular, they have helped show that urban perceptions of environmental knowledge frequently do not take into account the livelihood or economic realities of more rural areas.