Theses and Dissertations

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Open Access
Evaluation of the impact of the multicultural curriculum infusion project on faculty participants at Colorado State University
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Hughes, Blanche Mitchell, author; Turner, Ronny E., advisor; Brouillette, John R., committee member; Banning, James H., committee member; Eitzen, D. Stanley, committee member
The Multicultural Curriculum Project at Colorado State University was designed to provide an opportunity for faculty to acquire training and support for the infusion of multicultural material into their courses. This project included faculty facilitation, mentoring, and resources that provided this training and support for the faculty. The project, which began in 1990, has included over ninety faculty participants. The focus of this study was to assess how faculty participants evaluated the impact of the training and resources on their teaching, research, and service at Colorado State University. The following research questions were addressed: 1. How did the project impact faculty participants' teaching? 2. How did the project impact faculty participants' research? 3. How did the project impact the faculty participants' service? 4. What other significant impacts did the project have on faculty participants? 5. Were there changes in how faculty perceived these impacts over a four year time period with a specific focus on whether the faculty felt that they were more active and effective change agents after completing the project? As a result of this study the Multicultural Curriculum Infusion Project can be enhanced to serve as one of the models for other such university programs.
Open Access
Correctional personnel attitudes toward crime causation: free will or determinism?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1998) Rhineberger, Gayle M., author; Turner, Ronny E., committee member
For the past several decades interest in correctional personnel has grown steadily. However, little has been written on their attitudes toward crime causation. This study analyzes the results of a survey given to 271 correctional personnel. Using a free will/determinism dichotomy, correctional personnel attitudes toward crime causation are discussed. An analysis of the effects personal (e.g. age, gender) and occupational (e.g. years of correctional experience) characteristics have on predicting how personnel view crime causation is provided. Perceptions of correctional staff on how other members of the criminal justice system (e.g. police, society, judges, Department of Corrections) view crime causation is also discussed.
Open Access
Wildlife habitat and agricultural commodities: organizing a common property resource in northern Colorado's Phantom Canyon
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2001) Epperson, Annie, author; Freeman, David M., advisor; Taylor, Peter Leigh, committee member; Smith, Freeman M., committee member
Colorado surface water, an intensively-managed common property resource, has been allocated to serve primarily agricultural and municipal needs rather than ecological needs. This thesis inductively explores a case study in which two organizations, a mutual irrigation company (North Poudre Irrigation Company) which distributes common property irrigation water, and an environmental organization (The Nature Conservancy) protecting habitat for fish and wildlife, a collective good, forged a relationship. This organizational arrangement produces instream flows for habitat during fall, winter, and spring months, transcending individual rationality and creating organizational rationality as an agent of social and environmental change. Organizational variables, synthesized from the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990) and David Freeman (1989), are proposed as necessary for the successful creation of social capital in the form of an agreement between the two organizations. Qualitative methods, using in-depth interviews and document review, showed that the expected organizational variables were indeed present. Clear boundaries, equitable rules, and local control, were shown to contribute to the social construction of the agreement which resulted in the provision of a new good, with properties of both a collective good and a common property resource.
Open Access
Reregulating the flows of the Arkansas River: comparing forms of common pool resource organizations
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Lepper, Troy, author; Freeman, David M., advisor
What sociological attributes characterize the form of an enduring social organization that empowers individually rational self-interested actors to provide themselves with a common property resource and collective good? In order to address this research question, the analyst compared three common property resource and collective goods organizations for water management located in the Arkansas River basin of Colorado to an integrated ideal type model combining the work of David Freeman and Elinor Ostrom. It was the objective of this research to employ empirical observations while giving consideration to existing common property resource theories in an effort to formulate new theory. The three organizations being studied in this research were: (1) The Arkansas River Water Bank Pilot Program, (2) The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, (3) The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Management Association. A brief overview of the findings were as follows: (1) The Arkansas River Water Bank Pilot Program failed to show the characteristics that the analyst's integrated ideal type model would suggest were important to the creation of a long-enduring organization. The pilot program also failed to generate local interest. (2) The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District had some attributes of the integrated ideal type model, and is believed to have been partially successful for this reason. This organization will require further observation in the future to see just how successful it will be. (3) The Lower Arkansas Water Management Association had virtually all the characteristics of the integrated ideal type model. It was the only organization studied that should be considered a success story, success being defined by member support for the organization and the capacity of that organization to re-regulate flows on the Arkansas River. Implications for policy and theory are also addressed in this dissertation. The conceptual "ideal type" models do identify variables and relationships that can be associated with success and failure of social organizational experiences in the Arkansas Valley. The empirical observations of the three valley organizations do support aspects of the conceptual models found in the literature. Additionally, new theoretical propositions will be advanced.
Open Access
Belonging: identity, emotion work, and agency of intercountry Korean adoptees
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Kaanta, Tanya Lee, author; Kim, Joon Kium, advisor; Peek, Lori A., committee member; Ahuna-Hamill, Linda, committee member; Lacy, Michael G., committee member
This phenomenological study examines the experiences of adult Intercountry Korean Adoptees who lived in Seoul, Korea and Colorado at the time of the study. The research draws upon data gathered through participant observation and 31 in-depth semistructured interviews. Through an inductive theoretical approach, this study attempts to fill the gaps in the existing literature by providing a conceptual framework to better understand the complexity and the dynamics of intercountry identity formation. Unlike the identity development literature on racial minorities, intercountry adoptees cannot rely on the most basic membership criteria by which non-adoptees may define identity such as family, community, ethnicity, or culture. For intercountry adoptees, none of these taken-for-granted membership criteria is stable enough to claim ownership. In their struggle to anchor the shifting identity markers, intercountry adoptees assume different roles and play the part that is consistent with it. However, their unique status as adoptees fundamentally conflicts with societal norms about belonging, complicated by the socially ascribed master statuses, such as race, class, gender and other constructions of difference, which accentuate their "unbelongingness." Building on the sociology of emotions, this study posits that the intercountry adoptees' struggle for acceptance and a sense of belonging elicits much emotion work. I situate the varied emotional management efforts in the context of culture and structures that mediate rationally-conceived emotional responses tailored appropriately to certain interaction contexts. In the process of managing conflicting emotions between socially-ascribed feeling rules and true emotions, intercountry adoptees undergo transformative experiences that frame their sense of identity. This dissertation analyzes the ways that intercountry adoptees navigate through their identity formation and how this in turn shapes their actions and agency. The goal is to improve social theory regarding the identity formation of intercountry adoptees using adult rather than children’s voices. It also suggests identity is dynamic rather than linear or progressive. Further, the research introduces some contextual issues influencing identity formation.
Open Access
The original Green Revolution: the Catholic Worker farms and environmental morality
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Stock, Paul Vincent, author; Carolan, Michael, advisor
The following dissertation examines the history of the Catholic Worker farms. The Catholic Worker have printed a newspaper, run houses of hospitality and farms in the hope of treating people with dignity and working toward a common good. Founders Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin encouraged a Green Revolution predicated upon education, care for those in need and an agrarian tradition. Drawing on Jacques Ellul's work on the effects of a technological society, I offer the Catholic Worker farms as one way to mitigate those same effects. The Catholic Worker farms provide one illustration of an environmental morality that is counter to the ethics and theoretical morality common to the discourse of environmentalism.
Open Access
"Playing school": Latinos and role performance as students
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Dollar, Nathan Tilghman, author; Hempel, Lynn M., advisor; Brouillette, John R., committee member; Taylor, Peter L., committee member; Felix, Oscar, committee member
This thesis explores the educational experiences of Latino high school students at South Carmen High School. The research presented in this thesis contributes to the large body of literature that attempts to explain why Latino high school students graduate at much lower rates than their white counterparts and other immigrant groups. Specifically, this study examines how Latino students, administrators, and their teachers interact, how these interactions are perceived, and what happens when these interactions fail. Data from this thesis are drawn from an ethnographic case study of the educational community of South Carmen High School. Data was collected using a combination of participant and non-participant observations and 28 in-depth interviews. Interviews were conducted with administrators (n = 5; including one counselor), Latino students (n = 7), parents of those students (n = 8), and teachers (n=8). The data from this study indicate that educators and Latino students and their families at South Carmen High held sharply contrasting interpretations of their interactions with one another. The educators interviewed in this study indicated a key reason that many Latino students are less successful than their white counterparts and other immigrant groups is because Latino students are unable or unwilling to "play school" according to a standard script adopted by educators. However, the Latino students that were interviewed expressed that they knew how to play school and had attempted to perform their role, but were often unsuccessful. The inability or unwillingness to play school was often perceived by educators as a lack of cultural capital on the part of Latino students and their families. This thesis examines how educators' conception of cultural capital differs from that of sociologists' by comparing and contrasting the work of Ruby Payne and Pierre Bourdieu. Drawing on Bourdieu, I argue in this thesis that the concept of cultural capital in the field of Education, which is heavily influenced by the work of Ruby Payne, lacks a sufficient discussion of power, leaving unexplored more foundational issues of how the rules by which we "play school" get defined and who gets to define them. The work of Bourdieu is drawn on because it helps us understand the relationships of power between different agents (e.g. Latino students and educators), but it does not help us explore the interactions between agents whose relationship is characterized by power. The work of Erving Goffman is drawn on to fill this gap and explore the interaction order at South Carmen High. Drawing on Goffman, I argue in this thesis that Latino student-teacher interactions often fail because the obligations and expectations that govern these interactions are not met.
Open Access
A STIRPAT model of sectoral CO2 emissions at the county scale
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Sztukowski, John, author; Zahran, Sammy, advisor; Peek, Lori, committee member; Betsill, Michele, committee member
Background: The scientific community agrees that the principal cause of increased surface temperature globally is the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, with carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion being most important among GHGs. Objectives: To analyze the spatial correspondences between CO2 emissions and anthropogenic variables of population, affluence, and technology in the United States. Methods: Ordinary least squares regression and spatial analytical techniques are used to analyze variation in CO2 emissions based on a modified version of the STIRPAT model. The unit of analysis is the county, with 3108 counties in the contiguous United States analyzed. The CO2 emissions of multiple sectors are analyzed as a function of total county population, income per capita, and climatic variation. Results: Population has a proportional relationship, the strongest association, with CO2 emissions. Affluence has a positive relationship with CO2 emissions with an attainable Environmental Kuznets Curve for the residential sector and total CO2 emissions. Climate, including average winter and summer season temperature, has a positive relationship with total CO2 emissions, although it has a negative relationship with the residential and commercial sectors of CO2 emissions. Technology acts as the residual in the model, accounting for net-positive and net-negative technology. Conclusion: Population growth, and to a smaller extent economic growth, are the driving forces of CO2 at the local level. These findings are consistent with global STIRPAT models. An increase in winter or summer temperature further exacerbates CO2 emissions. Understanding the relationships between these anthropogenic variables and environmental impacts at the local scale is a crucial step in the process of formulating mitigation strategies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions in the US.
Open Access
Citizens, experts and the environmental impact statement: procedural structures and participatory boundaries
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Davidson, Casey, author; Carolan, Michael, advisor; Taylor, Pete, committee member; Feige, Mark, committee member
This thesis is a qualitative case-study of environmental management and decision-making as practiced by the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) in accordance with the environmental impact statement (EIS) process. Because there has been little empirical study of the EIS process despite criticisms that it has generally failed to both meaningfully engage citizens in governance and produce environmental outcomes consistent with the substantive aims of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), this study provides an in-depth and longitudinal analysis of the ways in which EIS procedures impacted the collaborative planning and development of RMNP's elk and vegetation management EIS. To explore how EIS procedures affect environmental planning and management, I use RMNP's archival records to reconstruct the life-cycle of the planning process and the events, processes, actors and considerations that played a role in shaping the trajectory and outcomes of planning. Furthermore, archival data is supplemented with semi-structured interviews to document how the management issue with elk and vegetation was constructed and shaped by the managerial imperatives of the park, the efforts and concerns of interagency collaborators and citizens, and by EIS protocol as it was interpreted by the interagency team and influential upon planning considerations, decisions and outcomes. The findings of this study contribute to an understanding of the EIS as a decision-making procedure and also provide some empirical support for scholarly criticisms of the EIS. However, these findings also suggest that the procedure's affects on environmental governance are more complex than currently theorized and difficult to disentangle from the constraints that divergent interagency orientations, interests and policies, and divisive and impassioned views among citizens pose for environmental governance. Therefore, this study is as much as case-study of interagency collaboration and citizen participation in the context of environmental management in the contemporary U.S. as it is a case-study of the EIS process. For this reason, my discussion of how conflicts and constraints emerged during planning, were addressed by interagency actors, and subsequently impacted public participation and managerial outcomes provides insights useful for scholars of environmental management or governance as well as practitioners who encounter these scenarios both within and outside of the EIS.
Open Access
Why organizations matter: certification experiences of coffee producer groups in Guatemala
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Heller, Andrew, author; Murray, Douglas, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Browne, Katherine, committee member; Raynolds, Laura, committee member
Coffee producers are just emerging from a long decade of low prices and oversupply. In response to these problems, many producers organized into groups and sought certifications based on social or environmental standards. This dissertation presents three case studies of producer groups in Guatemala and their experiences with certification in the coffee sector. Using a combination of ethnographic research methods, it argues that both certification systems and producer groups need to adapt so that producers can benefit from the potential gains of certification. Organizations are the focus of the analysis, emphasizing the capabilities necessary for producers to be able to access the benefits of certification. Certification within the coffee sector is a field of research that has implications for development studies, economic sociology, agrofood studies, and globalization. This dissertation concludes that the voices of the producers themselves are a forgotten key to providing organizations, whether of the producers themselves or the organizations that regulate certification, with the tools necessary to meet their goals. This study provides valuable information about the attitudes and interests of small producers in the context of organization and certification.
Open Access
An analysis of ethical consumption participation and motivation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Long, Michael Andrew, author; Raynolds, Laura T., 1959-, advisor; Berry, Kenneth J., committee member; Littrell, Mary Ann, committee member; Murray, Douglas L., 1947-, committee member
Consumption is part of everyone's lives. Throughout history the act of consumption was used exclusively for material needs satisfaction and, for some, as a mechanism to display wealth. However, in contemporary society, an increasing number of people are using consumption choices to support issues and causes. This growing trend is often referred to as ethical consumption. This study explores who participations in ethical consumption and why they choose to do so. I recommend a new methodological approach for the study of ethical consumption that focuses on ethical behaviors and the motivations for that behavior. I demonstrate that ethical consumption is prevalent in Colorado using a state-wide mail survey and focus groups. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of survey data and focus group discussions show that liberal political affiliation, higher levels of education and holding postmateralist values are significantly related to higher levels of participation in ethical consumption. The findings also highlight the different motivations of individuals for engaging in ethical consumption. I find two major categories of values-based consumers: ethical consumers who use their purchasing decisions to support broad issues and more directed political consumers who strive to create social change with their consumption choices. Finally, I discover that some ethical consumers create a collective identity with other ethical consumers. The results highlight how many individuals use non-economically rational consumption choices to engage with social issues.
Open Access
No como veneno: strengthening local organic markets in the Peruvian Andes
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Loomis, Jennifer C., author; Murray, Douglas, advisor; Raynolds, Laura, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee member
Economic and social development in Peru can partially be achieved through the promotion of local organic Farmers’ Markets. Local markets provide unique spaces in which producers and consumers interact and foster relationships developing a stable supply of high quality organic produce. However, market opportunities are limited by an underdeveloped consumer base. The goal of this study is to identify the patterns and values among current organic consumers in order to develop further actions that would increase demand for and supply of organic agricultural products. I have found that organizational obstacles, limited organic supply of organic goods, and lack of marketing all contribute to the underdeveloped consumer base which thereby limits market opportunities for small-scale organic farmers. By providing a case study of a Farmer’s Market in Peru, we can understand the values and beliefs present among current organic consumers, identify opportunities for expanding the market, and in turn, organic agricultural production.
Open Access
Equestrianism: serious leisure and intersubjectivity
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Butler, Erin, author; Cross, Jennifer, advisor; Peek, Lori A., committee member; Granger, Ben, committee member
Using the concepts of serious leisure and symbolic interactionism, this thesis explores the experiences of equestrians in the hunter/jumper discipline. This thesis draws from ethnographic research methods that utilize a combination of two years of participant observation and in-depth interviews. This research challenges the basis for Mead's (and others') exclusion of nonhuman animals from consideration as "authentic" social actors by highlighting the ways horse owners, in this study, describe their horses as minded, thoughtful individuals. These owners refute the notions that horses are mindless objects or are indistinct from other insensate elements of "nature," (i.e. air, water, or land). Focusing on the interactions between humans and horses, I examine the criteria used by horse owners to define their horses as minded individuals with whom they construct and maintain meaningful and satisfying social relationships. Using the rich and detailed descriptions of participants, I argue that two features of hunter/jumper equestrianism warrant reclassifying it as an amateur pursuit, rather than hobbyist activity: the visible and influential presence of professionals within the sport and owners' perception of horses' subjectivity, which makes the achievement of intersubjectivity possible. I emphasized the role of actions and argue that the concepts of 'mind,' 'self,' and 'personhood' are social constructions that arise from interaction. Furthermore, using the Serious Leisure Perspective as a theoretical foundation I explore key features of hunter/jumper equestrianism beyond merely human-animal 'attachments' or 'bonds.' This thesis considers hunter/jumper equestrianism in terms of serious leisure's six definitional social-psychological elements and confirms the viability of classifying hunter/jumper equestrianism as a form of serious leisure pursuit. Additionally, I present a new model for classifying the negative consequences, or costs, of serious leisure pursuits. Examining hunter/jumper equestrianism as a form of serious leisure highlights the 'serious' costs of participation in a pursuit, which is marginal to both human-animal interaction and leisure activities. Finally, this thesis highlights the potential of studying humans' relationships with horses for advancing an understanding of how personhood, mind, and identity are socially constructed, and the possibility of studying serious leisure pursuits as alternative sites for community, belonging, and identity in an increasingly fragmented post-modern society.
Open Access
What types of U.S. companies join the United Nations Global Compact? An empirical analysis of voluntary initiative engagement comparing the competitive advantage, regulatory avoidance, and new moral marketplace approaches
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Watne, Zachary Patrick, author; Stretesky, Paul, advisor; Shelley, Tara O'Connor, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
Previous literature on voluntary initiatives indicates that companies are more likely to join if they are large, diverse, profitable and are experiencing more regulatory oversight. While these findings are interesting, they have yet to be replicated among a sample of United States companies in the case of the United Nations Global Compact. Thus, this study draws upon corporate social responsibility literature as it relates to the United Nation's Global Compact to explore the relationship between Global Compact participation, company characteristics, regulatory oversight, and regulatory violations. The data for this analysis comes from the United Nations Global Compact Office, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database, the Environmental Protection Agency's Enforcement & Compliance History Online Database, the Dun & Bradstreet Million Dollar Database, Reference USA, along with selected corporate websites. The sample consists of 70 companies that joined the Global Compact and 70 companies that did not join the Global Compact. Logistic regression analysis suggests that the number of Securities and Exchange Commission litigation documents filed against each company increases the likelihood of Global Compact participation, as does the size of the company (seen with both sales totals and employees per company); additionally, companies based in manufacturing are also more likely to sign into the Global Compact. Surprisingly, previous environmental compliance was not associated with participation in the Global Compact. This finding suggests that U.S. companies that join the Global Compact are not "good" or "bad" environmental actors. This study is unique in that findings suggest companies that join the Global Compact appear to be driven primarily by economic regulation as opposed to environmental regulation.
Open Access
Representation and partnership: a case study of the worker committee on fair trade certified farms in the Ecuadorian cut-flower industry
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Schelly, Erica, author; Raynolds, Laura, advisor; Murray, Doug, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
This thesis explores the effectiveness of the worker committee on fair trade certified flower plantations in Ecuador in an effort to identify the challenges and opportunities for fair trade in its goal to facilitate worker representation and empowerment on large-scale enterprises. Representation starts by giving workers an institutional mechanism through which they can join management in the discussion of fair working conditions. The worker committee serves as this mechanism on certified farms in Ecuador. Empowerment implies that workers have the power to instigate change in order to improve working conditions. Providing worker empowerment is problematic in this context due to the structural limitations of the worker committee. Nonetheless, the extent to which the worker committee can provide representation and communication between workers and management may serve as an important step in the process towards worker empowerment. In order to understand the potential for representation on flower plantations, it is important to acknowledge that the flower industry and the actors involved are operating in a market that favors rationality and productivity. I employ Weber's notion of formal rationality to help situate this discussion. Formal rationality is the governing force behind the rise of modern society and its institutions; including the modern global economy. Formal rationality allows for efficiency and calculability, but also leads to an impersonal world where the needs of individuals are sidestepped in order to create a system of productivity. The goal of this study is to demonstrate how management's drive to rationalize production in order to survive in a competitive flower industry has the potential to both constrain and enable the process toward worker empowerment. For flower producers, the drive to differentiate makes certification an attractive option. Certified farms in turn, provide the institutional space for worker representation and communication with management. This paper argues that representation is a precondition for the type of empowerment that workers ultimately need, but does not assume that representation and empowerment are synonymous. Specifically, this study looks at the potential benefits and limitations of the worker committee in its effort to facilitate representation and communication. It addresses two research questions. What are the rationalization processes that impact the lives of workers and managers? To what extent does the worker committee serve as a forum for communication between workers and managers to promote representation?
Open Access
Visibility, legitimacy, and power: a North Carolina fishing community and governance of the commons
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) May, Candace K., author; Taylor, Peter Leigh, advisor; Carolan, Michael S., committee member; Lacy, Michael G., committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
Researchers studying common pool resource (CPR) governance argue that the participation of natural resource dependent people in formal processes of natural resource governance is essential for the sustainability of those resources. In accord with the vast body of related research and political activism, the United States fisheries management system promotes co-management practices as the pathway to sustainable fisheries governance. Nevertheless, empirical evidence illustrates that local fishers are increasingly disappearing from the fishing industry and their communities at the same time as the degradation of fisheries is increasing. I examine this contradiction through a case study of a community of commercial fisherpeople in Two Rivers, North Carolina. I develop the concepts of visibility, legitimacy, and power to capture the multiple levels and scales of structure and agency that shape the participation of local fishers in governance activities and lead to environmental degradation. Data was collected through interviews, observations, and review of policy documents and local archives. An important finding from this study is that many local fishers practice active non-participation, - intentional non-involvement in formal political activities while instead engaging in informal fisheries governance activities. However, the political inactivity associated with active non-participation decreases the legitimacy and power of local fishers, hastening their disarticulation from the fisheries, further decreasing the efficacy of formal political processes and ultimately resulting in unsustainable fisheries governance. Through the active political participation of commercial fishers, there is hope and a way forward for the future of fisher livelihoods and the sustainability of the nation's fisheries.
Open Access
Evolution of community structure in the system of global environmental governance
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Fagan, Jesse M., author; Zahran, Sammy J., advisor; Lacy, Michael, committee member; Betsill, Michele Merrill, 1967-, committee member
Self-organization can arise in systems where actors interact in non-trivial ways and adapt their rule-sets in response to their environment. In the global system of environmental governance (GSEG), countries that interact frequently develop cultures of practice and aggregate into larger structures or communities. Network analysis provides a powerful set of tools to describe the evolution and composition of observed communities. Methods developed for bipartite networks are used to consider the behavior of countries and agreements simultaneously in the years between 1950 and 2000. Specifically, the BRIM algorithm, a bipartite adaptation of Newman's eigenvector method of community discovery, is implemented to identify the borders of densely connected international environmental communities. Our analysis of community structure provides a more precise quantification of the evolution of the international environmental system of governance noted by regime theorists.
Open Access
Digestive dialectics: everyday life, food, and social change in contemporary Japan
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Fenton, Robert Priessman, III, author; Carolan, Michael S., advisor; Taylor, Peter L., committee member; Dickinson, Greg, committee member
In the field of social research, the concept of change has been dissociated from its practical foundations, recast as a function of structural manipulations and conceptual processes. The living, breathing body of people in their everyday lives has been annihilated by the panoptic gaze of "objectivist" science, its somatic knowledge reduced to a residue. But for all of this technocracy, the lived--everyday life--is no mere repository of conceptual knowledge, but the soil which supports the whimsical adventures of these plants--the so-called "higher spheres"--pullulating from its nourishing base. This thesis, therefore, attempts to relocate the living body in the matrix of gastropractical forces, micro and macro, in two specific contexts in contemporary Japan. Its objective, then, is to discover this body and the forces it confronts in everyday acts of food consumption in rotary sushi bars and Korean barbecue restaurants, the perceptual limits that constrain the ability of actors to "see" the potential for change immanent to repetitious gastropraxis. By utilizing theoretical and methodological precepts fashioned by the work of French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre, this research project moves to tackle the issue of social change from a phenomenological perspective. That social space and time are a component of the eating process is apparent. By focusing on a confluence of issues, both immediate and mediate, I take the viewpoint of an actor within these contexts and subject it to rigorous examination. From this perspective things like environmental destruction, culture, aesthetics, political economy, and colonization are analyzed dialectically. Only by problemitizing these forces at the level of the body will the potential for change be uncovered, by laying bare the epistemic barriers that have been erected to reduce its visibility. If social change is to be enduring, affective linkages and embodied knowledge must be integrated into the conceptual whole, which can only happen by recognizing the barriers which prevent its incorporation.
Open Access
"People already live here" An ethnographic case study of employed residents of New York City's Graham Public Housing Project
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Demong, Katherine Koczynski, author; Taylor, Peter Leigh, advisor; Peek, Lori A., committee member; Kwiatkowski, Lynn M., committee member
This thesis explores the attitudes and sentiments of employed residents of the Graham Public Housing Development or, "Project" in New York City. In order to understand life in public housing, past and current public housing policies are examined for both the United States and the City of New York. Additionally, the history of how public housing is portrayed in the media and in academia is discussed. Data for this thesis was collected using a variety of qualitative techniques including participant and non-participant observation and in-depth interviews. A total of twenty-five (N=25) interviews were conducted. Fifteen (N=15) interviews were conducted with employed mothers of African descent of the Graham Development. The remaining ten interviews were conducted with informed experts (N=5) and community leaders (N=5). It was hypothesized, bolstered by current academic work concerning the benefits of residing in public housing, that employed respondents would desire to remain residents of their development because of social ties. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that this decision would be tempered by the housing scarcity in New York City and the overall safety of the neighborhood in which the Graham Development is located. This hypothesis was largely not supported as all respondents expressed a desire to eventually leave their homes. Factors identified as prompting respondents to want to leave include the stigma associated with residing in public housing, social isolation, safety, maintenance, and desire for home ownership. However, despite the fact that all respondents reported that they eventually wanted to leave public housing, respondents reported that they would like for society to understand that "real" people reside in public housing. Additionally, although respondents claim to be socially isolated from others in their development, they also state that they feel as though there are social benefits to living in a mixed community. The research presented in this work makes a contribution to the growing body of literature concerning public housing in the United States as it focuses on only employed residents of public housing while most other studies treat all public housing residents as a homogenous group. Additionally, information gathered from the employed respondents can be utilized to offer a critique of the public housing policies associated with the City of New York.
Open Access
Longitudinal and geographic analysis of the relationship between natural disasters and crime in the United States
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Prelog, Andrew J., author; O'Connor Shelley, Tara, advisor; Peek, Lori, advisor; Hogan, Michael, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member
Natural disasters and crime are ubiquitous in the United States. The public generally views the social disorder associated with disaster events as criminogenic--that is, disasters somehow foster opportunistic criminal behavior. Scientific investigation into the relationship between disaster and crime is more nuanced--and at times has produced contradictory and inconsistent findings. This dissertation research explores the relationship between disaster and crime in the continental United States to investigate the question of whether disasters of different magnitudes and/or types differentially affect crime rates. I employ three sociological theories to inform the analyses. First, sociology of disaster researchers, using the therapeutic community hypothesis, have long asserted that disasters reduce criminal activity both during and after the event. Second, criminologists using social disorganization theory assert that disaster may increase the likelihood and occurrence of crime. Third, researchers using routine activity theory suggest that disaster may increase or decrease criminal activity, depending on how a disaster restructures formal and informal mechanisms of social control, and criminal opportunity. To investigate this question, I use geographic and longitudinal analyses of 14 years of county-level data on socio-demographic predictors of crime, crime rates, and disaster impacts. I statistically model 11 different categories of crime and impacts from 12 different disaster types using geographic information systems, hierarchical linear modeling, and geographically weighted regression. In general, findings indicate that higher crime rates are associated with larger disaster magnitudes. The effect is not consistent for all categories of crime investigated in this research. Findings also indicate that certain types of disasters have a differential effect on crime outcomes, independent of disaster magnitude. This research and results represent the first county-level geographic and longitudinal analysis of disaster and crime for the United States.