Papers by Meredith Welch-Devine
International audienceThe multidisciplinary and comparative PIAF program (ANR Jeunes Chercheurs 2... more International audienceThe multidisciplinary and comparative PIAF program (ANR Jeunes Chercheurs 2014-2018) uses perceptions and discourse relating to biodiversity to investigate local understandings of environmental change and strategies for adaptation to those changes. Beginning from the hypothesis that a person's connection to the environment differs according to his or her degree of dependence on natural resources and place of residence, we examine perceptions and strategies on an urban-rural-protected area gradient in four northern and southern countries (France, the United States, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe). PIAF brings together social and natural scientists who seek to contribute to our understanding of perceptions and knowledge related to environmental change and, more globally, to our understanding of social-ecological interactions in a situation of change, social and environmental tensions, and dynamics of socio-ecological systems.Le programme pluridisciplinaire PIAF (ANR ...
The Georgia Scenic Byways program is a "grassroots effort … to identify, preserve, promote, and p... more The Georgia Scenic Byways program is a "grassroots effort … to identify, preserve, promote, and protect treasured corridors throughout the state" (Georgia Department of Transportation 2013, p. 32). To date, the Georgia Department of Transportation has designated 15 Scenic Byways. This paper presents a model "valued landscape detector, " a smartphone application that uses social media and augmented reality mechanisms to engage interested citizens in evaluating the scenic value of highways (or stretches of highways). Citizen data collectors, guided by GIS via their smartphones, are invited to provide in situ evaluations and upload photos and geolocation data for the Georgia Scenic Byways designation program. Another goal of the project is to identify currently undesignated stretches of highway that may be candidates for future State designation. Beyond the current application, the method may be useful for identifying a wide array of cultural and natural resources that might otherwise be overlooked.
Les effets des changements environnementaux globaux (changement climatique, erosion de la biodive... more Les effets des changements environnementaux globaux (changement climatique, erosion de la biodiversite, changements d’occupation des sols, etc.) touchent les societes du monde entier mais varient d’une region a l’autre. Dans le cadre de cette communication, nous souhaitons revenir sur la construction et la mise en œuvre de notre Programme de recherche, PIAF, interdisciplinaire et comparatif. PIAF vise a faire emerger, au travers la comparaison d’etudes de cas fines localisees dans 4 pays, une vue generale de la perception des changements environnementaux, en ville et en campagne, aux Nords et aux Suds. Notre equipe, composee d’ethnologues, anthropologues, geographes et ecologues, etudie les diagnostics que les acteurs locaux font des transformations des territoires et pretend acceder aux perceptions du changement au travers des discours, savoirs et usages locaux de la biodiversite. Les especes faunistiques ou floristiques tiennent souvent lieu d’indicateurs locaux des transformation...
Questo Forum raccoglie brevi interventi di antropologi che con ruoli diversi lavorano in differen... more Questo Forum raccoglie brevi interventi di antropologi che con ruoli diversi lavorano in differenti contesti universitari, allo scopo di riflettere su recenti esperienze di riforme neoliberiste del sistema pubblico dell'istruzione superiore. I contributi esplorano processi di neoliberalizzazione dell'universita e cambiamenti istituzionali in corso in Australia e Nuova Zelanda, Romania, Danimarca, Grecia, Finlandia, Messico, Stati Uniti, Olanda, Spagna, Canada e Regno Unito. L'obiettivo e quello di costruire una piattaforma che possa ospitare riflessioni critiche sulle trasformazioni attuali dell'accademia e delle relative implicazioni per il futuro dell'antropologia. Auspichiamo che il Forum serva anche a indurre i colleghi alle prese con le conseguenze del vigente regime di austerita a formare una coalizione in favore di una idea di universita diversa da quella oggi dominante. Contributi di Cris Shore & Susan Wright, Vintilă Mihăilescu, Sarah F. Green, Gabriela ...
Natures Sciences Sociétés, 2017
The multidisciplinary and comparative PIAF program (ANR Jeunes Chercheurs 2014-2018) uses percept... more The multidisciplinary and comparative PIAF program (ANR Jeunes Chercheurs 2014-2018) uses perceptions and discourse relating to biodiversity to investigate local understandings of environmental change and strategies for adaptation to those changes. Beginning from the hypothesis that a person's connection to the environment differs according to his or her degree of dependence on natural resources and place of residence, we examine perceptions and strategies on an urban-rural-protected area gradient in four northern and southern countries (France, the United States, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe). PIAF brings together social and natural scientists who seek to contribute to our understanding of perceptions and knowledge related to environmental change and, more globally, to our understanding of social-ecological interactions in a situation of change, social and environmental tensions, and dynamics of socio-ecological systems.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2019
Vulnerability and resilience of coastal communities is increasingly important in the face of sea ... more Vulnerability and resilience of coastal communities is increasingly important in the face of sea level rise and severe storms. Situated at the nexus of geographic information systems (GIS) and natural hazard vulnerability, this study compares and integrates a GIS-based approach that produces social vulnerability indexes from census data and a human subject survey-based approach that learns local perceptions of coastal hazards in the aftermath of Hurricanes Matthew and Irma. It applies statistical and geovisual analyses of data from both approaches. We find significant variations in perceptions across the vulnerability spectrum and relate these differences to theories of expert and nonexpert knowledge. It is believed that both sets of results are useful and revealing from different perspectives, although each has its own weaknesses. Integration of both can provide a fuller picture of social vulnerability. To this end, the study demonstrates several geovisualization methods for integration.
Human Organization, 2015
As the people of Southern Appalachia confront the challenges of climate change and exurban develo... more As the people of Southern Appalachia confront the challenges of climate change and exurban development, their foundational beliefs about the environment and human-environment relations will significantly shape the types of individual and collective action that they imagine and pursue. In this paper, we use critical discourse analysis of an influential small-town newspaper to understand how the environment is being represented publicly and consider how these representations might affect local environmental politics and efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change and exurban sprawl. We find that the environment is generally represented as an amenity to be enjoyed rather than a subject of concern, that environmental degradation, when represented at all, is often discussed in vague or distancing terms, and that human agency is typically presented in individualizing, hyper-local terms rather than in collective, community-or national-scale ones. In conclusion, we suggest that these representational styles are likely very effective for inspiring interest in and connection to local landscapes, but they do not provide a strong basis for collective efforts to understand and address climate change and exurbanization.
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2011
In this article, we discuss the economic constraints and opportunities that Basque farmers in two... more In this article, we discuss the economic constraints and opportunities that Basque farmers in two neighbouring valleys in France faced before the 2003 reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In the last decade, constraints and opportunities have shifted, and farmers have diversified their economic strategies in order to cope with a rise in rural tourism and second home ownership, an expansion of leisure activities into what has historically been an agricultural territory, and the implications that the uncertain future of the European Union's CAP has for small family farmers in this area. We examine this diversification of household economic strategies to include non-agricultural activities and the implications it has for economic health and rural livelihoods in the Basque region.
Environmental Communication, 2015
Despite compelling reasons to involve non-scientists in the production of ecological knowledge, c... more Despite compelling reasons to involve non-scientists in the production of ecological knowledge, cultural and institutional factors often disincentivize engagement between scientists and nonscientists. This paper details our efforts to develop a biweekly newspaper column to increase communication between ecological scientists, social scientists and the communities within which they work. Addressing community-generated topics and written by a collective of social and natural scientists, the column is meant to (1) foster public dialogue about socio-environmental issues and (2) lay the groundwork for the co-production of environmental knowledge. Our collective approach to writing addresses some major barriers to public engagement by scientists, but the need to insert ourselves as intermediaries limits these gains. Overall, our efforts at environmental communication praxis have not generated significant public debate, but they have supported future co-production by making scientists a more visible presence in the community and providing easy pathways for them to begin engaging the public.
Ambio, 2021
This paper examines how residents of Southern Appalachia observe changes in their natural environ... more This paper examines how residents of Southern Appalachia observe changes in their natural environment, the values that they assign to plants and animals in that environment, and their understandings and explanations of environmental change. We use semi-structured interviews and participant observation to determine that multigenerational residents and newcomers to the region are observing and noting change in different components of the environment and that they have different determinations of both the causes and likely consequences of that change. While multigenerational residents focus their observation and commentary on staple crops and culturally-important species, newcomers to the area concentrate on species related to recreational pursuits, giving each group insights into different aspects of environmental change. These findings are translated into recommendations for more inclusive and effective environmental and conservation planning.
Projections of climate change, biodiversity loss, and associated socioeconomic impacts are increa... more Projections of climate change, biodiversity loss, and associated socioeconomic impacts are increasingly dire. In this volume, we turn our attention from the spectacular scenes of climate disruption to the slow and subtle, the small but consequential shifts in the species and landscapes that we humans interact with on a constant basis. This introductory chapter offers an analytical framework for the chapters that follow. Synthesizing lessons from environmental anthropology, we argue that microexperiences of change offer a critical but neglected lens for understanding the Anthropocene as a new geological, cultural, and political era. Focusing on microexperiences allows us to examine how individuals and communities are experiencing climate change in intimately meaningful ways, how they are constructing knowledge based on these experiences, and how that knowledge shapes their responses. This in turn provides unique insights into the diverse ways that people are embedded in their environ...
Climate change and exurban development present significant social, economic, and environmental ch... more Climate change and exurban development present significant social, economic, and environmental challenges in Southern Appalachia. Addressing those challenges—whether to prevent them, mitigate them, or prepare for them—will require individual action and collective action at community and regional scales. However, the coordination necessary for such action will be difficult to achieve in a region long opposed to regulation, suspicious of newcomers, and characterized by increasing social diversity. One particularly salient difference that is likely to shape collective responses to climate change is the distinction between “newcomers” and “multigenerationals,” descendants of people who have lived in the region for generations. In this chapter, we draw on nearly 80 interviews to address three questions: What indicators and consequences of climate change do people observe in their everyday lives and view as relevant? How does one’s connection to this landscape shape the indicators and con...
This essay explores the impacts of neoliberal policies on graduate education, focusing attention ... more This essay explores the impacts of neoliberal policies on graduate education, focusing attention on issues of curriculum, decision-making, and the role of graduate students at the university.
We are interested in the general question of how to augment the viewed landscape with representat... more We are interested in the general question of how to augment the viewed landscape with representations of its otherwise invisible aspects and using these to prompt visitors to reveal previously unidentified aspects of that same landscape. We take a participatory, grassroots perspective, where expert and local knowledge are made available, but emphasis lies in the collection of new or explanatory information from the broadest feasible range of participants. This paper proposes a process for capturing not just individual experience of place, but collective experience built upon the individual. Crowdsourced imagery and sound “bites” populate an augmented reality (AR) environment and prompts visitors to the AR to consider and respond to those originating experiences with their own. We provide and project additional environmental data to prompt embellishments, corrections or additions. In our prototype, the goal is to locate as-yet-unidentified valued highway landscapes, but the general a...
La conservation de la biodiversite : vers une prise en compte des relations entre les societes lo... more La conservation de la biodiversite : vers une prise en compte des relations entre les societes locales et leurs natures Une ethnologie pour la conservation ou de la conservation : aider a la co-gestion ou identifier les phenomenes de coercition ? Vers une meilleure integration des sciences humaines et des sciences de la vie dans les programmes de recherche pour / sur la conservation de la biodiversite.
Le territoire de la province basque de Soule (departement des Pyrenees-Atlantiques, France) compr... more Le territoire de la province basque de Soule (departement des Pyrenees-Atlantiques, France) comprend plus de 14. 000 hectares de terres collectives. Ces terres fournissent de nombreuses ressources, notamment les pâturages d'ete, aux eleveurs de la province qui, pendant des siecles, ont collectivement gere leurs terres dans le cadre d'un regime de propriete collective. Aujourd’hui, la conservation de la biodiversite est apparue comme une preoccupation majeure pour la communaute internationale et les elus europeens. En 1992, la Commission europeenne a adopte la directive «Habitats», qui avec la directive «Oiseaux», cree un reseau paneuropeen de zones a gerer dans un but de durabilite sociale, economique, et ecologique. Ce reseau, Natura 2000, est constitue de sites de conservation sur des terres privees mais aussi publiques, et les terres collectives de Soule sont recouvertes dans leur quasi-totalite par des sites Natura 2000. La mise en œuvre de Natura 2000 pousse le systeme ...
Journal of Qualitative Research in Tourism, 2021
While peer-to-peer accommodation research is increasingly cognizant of various stakeholders impac... more While peer-to-peer accommodation research is increasingly cognizant of various stakeholders impacted by the rising popularity of this disruptive phenomenon, one stakeholder remains understudied-the host. This study uses a Deductive Qualitative Analysis to explore a tripartite of peer-to-peer accommodation host identities [the entrepreneurial identity, residential identity and sustainable entrepreneur identity] within the City of Savannah, GA. Peer-to-peer accommodation hosts are agents of change in the communities in which they operate. This study posits that their impacts, whether positive or negative, on communities in which they operate depend on the existence of these identities. Potential opportunities for collaboration between hosts and local municipalities are discussed in light of the proposed identity framework.
College student journal, 2019
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Papers by Meredith Welch-Devine