School of Sustainability Graduate Culminating Experiences
Student capstone and applied projects from ASU's School of Sustainability.
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- Creators: Christensen, Jill E.
- Creators: Curtis, Emily
The Woarani of the Pastaza Province in Amazonian Ecuador face complex pressures both externally and internally to develop. While there are both positive and negative impacts associated with this transition, it remains a problem that development solutions designed external to the system they’re meant to impact risk imposing asymmetries on that system. This research explores the case of a culturally and historically embedded boundary organization operating at the nexus between Western academics and two communities of Woarani in the Pastaza Province of Ecuador. Through unstructured and semi-structured interviews, field- observation and social and historical research, this study seeks to understand: 1) the pathways to development for the Waorani, what and why they choose what they do and, 2) in the context of the I-W boundary at the field school site, the elements of development that are critical for sustainable scaling. Key findings include eight elements that explain development at the field school and situate the school as a boundary organization. Another important finding is the support for sustainable scaling, that in this context, sustainable scaling is modeled by organic growth along known networks of relations.
efforts while significantly lowering NAU’s carbon footprint. Through a collective subsidization between NAU and the City of Flagstaff, the CRTI would
be able to provide all NAU students and staff free access to public transportation. This initiative would also help to reduce the amount of traffic
congestion in Flagstaff’s downtown business district and free up valuable parking spaces both on and off campus. In addition, Flagstaff’s public bus
system, the Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority (NAIPTA) would become eligible to apply for larger grants with the
anticipated increase in ridership. This would then allow NAIPTA to increase both the number and the frequency of bus stops which would benefit the
entire Flagstaff community.