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- All Subjects: Sustainability
- Genre: Academic theses
- Creators: Cloutier, Scott
- Creators: Manuel-Navarrete, David
Description
During the months from June to November 2012, the city of Bangalore was faced with a serious solid waste management (SWM) crisis. In the wake of the upheaval, the state court declared source segregation to be mandatory. Yet, while the legislation was clear, the pathway towards a course of action for the transition was not clear and hence, Bangalore was stuck in a state of limbo. The objectives for this thesis spiraled organically from this crisis. The first objective was to examine the gaps in Bangalore's transition to a more sustainable SWM system. Six particular gaps were identified, which in essence, were opportunities to re-shape the system. The gaps identified included: conflicting political agendas, the exclusion of some key actors, and lack of adequate attention to cultural aspects, provision of appropriate incentives, protection of livelihoods and promotion of innovation. Opportunities were found in better incentivization of sustainable SWM goals, protecting livelihoods that depend on waste, enhancing innovation and endorsing local, context based SWM solutions. Building on this understanding of gaps, the second objective was to explore an innovative, local, bottom-up waste-management model called the Vellore Zero Waste Model, and assess its applicability to Bangalore. The adaptability of the model depended on several factors such as, willingness of actors to redefine their roles and change functions, ability of the municipality to assure quality and oversight, willingness of citizen to source segregate, and most importantly, the political will and collective action needed to ensure and sustain the transition. The role of communication as a vital component to facilitate productive stakeholder engagement and to promote role change was evident. Therefore, the third objective of the study was to explore how interpersonal competencies and communication strategies could be used as a tool to facilitate stakeholder engagement and encourage collective action. In addressing these objectives, India was compared with Austria because Austria is often cited as having some of the best SWM practices in the world and has high recycling rates to show for its reputation.
ContributorsRengarajan, Nivedita (Author) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Thesis advisor) / Chhetri, Nalini (Committee member) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Perceptions of climate variability and change reflect local concerns and the actual impacts of climate phenomena on people's lives. Perceptions are the bases of people's decisions to act, and they determine what adaptive measures will be taken. But perceptions of climate may not always be aligned with scientific observations because they are influenced by socio-economic and ecological variables. To find sustainability solutions to climate-change challenges, researchers and policy makers need to understand people's perceptions so that they can account for likely responses. Being able to anticipate responses will increase decision-makers' capacities to create policies that support effective adaptation strategies. I analyzed Mexican maize farmers' perceptions of drought variability as a proxy for their perceptions of climate variability and change. I identified the factors that contribute to the perception of changing drought frequency among farmers in the states of Chiapas, Mexico, and Sinaloa. I conducted Chi-square tests and Logit regression analyses using data from a survey of 1092 maize-producing households in the three states. Results showed that indigenous identity, receipt of credits or loans, and maize-type planted were the variables that most strongly influenced perceptions of drought frequency. The results suggest that climate-adaptation policy will need to consider the social and institutional contexts of farmers' decision-making, as well as the agronomic options for smallholders in each state.
ContributorsRodríguez, Natalia (Author) / Eakin, Hallie (Thesis advisor) / Muneepeerakul, Rachata (Thesis advisor) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Studies of governance have focused on the interactions among diverse actors while implicitly recognizing the role of power within those relationships. Explicit power analyses of water governance coordination are needed to better understand the conditions for and barriers to sustainability. I therefore utilized a novel conceptual framework to analyze vertical and horizontal governance, along with power, to address how governance interactions affect water sustainability in terms of (1) interactions among governance actors across local to state levels; (2) coordination among actors at the local level; and (3) the exercise of power among assorted actors. I adopted a qualitative case study methodology that involved triangulating interview transcripts, policy documents, and other data in the case study area of Prescott, Arizona.
Across governance scales, my analysis found that informational and contentious interactions occur around water management plans, groundwater withdrawal fees, and growth debates due to the stipulations of Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act. Locally, municipalities in different groundwater basins coordinate by pooling resources for water development due to shared growth visions. However, municipalities within the same groundwater basin are divided in their pursuit of the state-mandated goal of safe yield due to discontent arising from differing growth visions, libertarian values of water control, and unequal responsibilities among actors in conserving water or monitoring use. Finally, local and state actors exercise power through litigation, legislation, and political processes to pursue their interests, thereby limiting coordination for water sustainability.
My explicit analysis of power reveals that coordination occurs not just because of water policies but due to interest-based water narratives (growth and libertarian). The emphasis of growth proponents on supply augmentation and libertarian opposition to regulations pose significant barriers to water sustainability. Successful policy-based pursuits of water sustainability will, thus, require an acknowledgment of these management asymmetries and commitments to addressing them.
Across governance scales, my analysis found that informational and contentious interactions occur around water management plans, groundwater withdrawal fees, and growth debates due to the stipulations of Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act. Locally, municipalities in different groundwater basins coordinate by pooling resources for water development due to shared growth visions. However, municipalities within the same groundwater basin are divided in their pursuit of the state-mandated goal of safe yield due to discontent arising from differing growth visions, libertarian values of water control, and unequal responsibilities among actors in conserving water or monitoring use. Finally, local and state actors exercise power through litigation, legislation, and political processes to pursue their interests, thereby limiting coordination for water sustainability.
My explicit analysis of power reveals that coordination occurs not just because of water policies but due to interest-based water narratives (growth and libertarian). The emphasis of growth proponents on supply augmentation and libertarian opposition to regulations pose significant barriers to water sustainability. Successful policy-based pursuits of water sustainability will, thus, require an acknowledgment of these management asymmetries and commitments to addressing them.
ContributorsAyodele, Deborah Olufunmilola (Author) / Larson, Kelli L (Thesis advisor) / Bolin, Robert (Committee member) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Institutions of higher learning can be centers of meaning-making and learning and are expected to play a pivotal role in a global shift toward sustainability. Despite recent innovations, much sustainability education today is still delivered using traditional pedagogies common across higher education. Therefore, students and facilitators should continue innovating along pedagogical themes consistent with the goals of sustainability: transformation and emancipation. Yet, more clarity is needed about pedagogical approaches that will transform and emancipate students, allowing them to become innovators that change existing structures and systems. My dissertation attempts to address this need using three approaches. First, I present a framework combining four interacting (i.e., complementary) pedagogies (transmissive, transformative, instrumental, and emancipatory) for sustainability education, helping to reify pedagogical concepts, rebel against outdated curricula, and orient facilitators/learners on their journey toward transformative and emancipatory learning. Second, I use a descriptive case study of a sustainability education course set outside of the traditional higher education context to highlight pedagogical techniques that led to transformative and emancipatory outcomes for learners partaking in the course. Third, I employ the method of autoethnography to explore my own phenomenological experience as a sustainability student and classroom facilitator, helping others to identify the disenchanting paradoxes of sustainability education and integrate the lessons they hold. All three approaches of the dissertation maintain a vision of sustainability education that incorporates contemplative practices as essential methods in a field in need of cultivating hope, resilience, and emergence.
ContributorsPapenfuss, Jason (Author) / Merritt, Eileen (Thesis advisor) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Thesis advisor) / Eckard, Bonnie (Committee member) / Cloutier, Scott (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Positive Youth Development (PYD) programs include intentional efforts by peers, adults, communities, schools, and organizations to provide opportunities for youth to increase their skills, abilities, and interests in positive activities. The goal of PYD is to provide positive outcomes where youth are viewed as resources to be developed rather than problems to be managed. Future generations rely on youth as active contributing members of society and PYD programs promote sustainable futures for young individuals and the community. PYD programs started in the United States and grew out of interest in prevention programs targeting risky behavior of youth.
Interest is growing in expanding PYD programs internationally as they may promote resilient characteristics and sustainable life skills. In particular, and one focus area of this dissertation, interest is growing in rural Asia. However, given the interdisciplinary nature of PYD programs, there are no standard assessment metrics or tools in place. Without standards, comparing PYD programs effectively is impossible. Within this dissertation, in four papers, I 1) develop a universal PYD assessment tool, the Positive Youth Development Sustainability Scale (PYDSS), 2) apply the PYDSS to two PYD programs in rural Thailand as a quantitative analysis, 3) use the categories of the PYDSS as a coding guide for qualitative analysis of two PYD programs in rural Thailand, and 4) assess a PYD program in the Phoenix-metro area that integrates physical activity, academics, and ethics. Results indicate that the PYDSS can be applied to PYD programs in both Thailand and Phoenix and that a mixed methods approach is a suggested form or data collection. My research could lead to the further improvement of current PYD programs and their intervention role, while also promoting universal PYD assessment techniques that support sustainable impacts on youth as a result of program intervention and design.
Interest is growing in expanding PYD programs internationally as they may promote resilient characteristics and sustainable life skills. In particular, and one focus area of this dissertation, interest is growing in rural Asia. However, given the interdisciplinary nature of PYD programs, there are no standard assessment metrics or tools in place. Without standards, comparing PYD programs effectively is impossible. Within this dissertation, in four papers, I 1) develop a universal PYD assessment tool, the Positive Youth Development Sustainability Scale (PYDSS), 2) apply the PYDSS to two PYD programs in rural Thailand as a quantitative analysis, 3) use the categories of the PYDSS as a coding guide for qualitative analysis of two PYD programs in rural Thailand, and 4) assess a PYD program in the Phoenix-metro area that integrates physical activity, academics, and ethics. Results indicate that the PYDSS can be applied to PYD programs in both Thailand and Phoenix and that a mixed methods approach is a suggested form or data collection. My research could lead to the further improvement of current PYD programs and their intervention role, while also promoting universal PYD assessment techniques that support sustainable impacts on youth as a result of program intervention and design.
ContributorsSieng, Michael (Author) / Cloutier, Scott (Thesis advisor) / Dooley, Kevin (Committee member) / Eder, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
City governments are increasingly incorporating urban and peri-urban agriculture into their policies and programs, a trend seen as advancing sustainability, development, and food security. Urban governance can provide new opportunities for farmers, but it also creates structures to control their activities, lands, and purposes.
This study focused on Mexico City, which is celebrated for its agricultural traditions and policies. The study examined: 1) the functions of urban and peri-urban agriculture that the Government of Mexico City (GMC) manages and prioritizes; 2) how the GMC’s policies have framed farmers, and how that framing affects farmers’ identity and purpose; and 3) how the inclusion of agrarian activities and lands in the city’s climate-change adaptation plan has created opportunities and obstacles for farmers. Data was collected through participant observation of agricultural and conservation events, informal and semi-structured interviews with government and agrarian actors, and analysis of government documents and budgets.
Analysis of policy documents revealed that the GMC manages agriculture as an instrument for achieving urban objectives largely unrelated to food: to conserve the city’s watershed and provide environmental services. Current policies negatively frame peri-urban agriculture as unproductive and a source of environmental contamination, but associate urban agriculture with positive outcomes for development and sustainability. Peri-urban farmers have resisted this framing, asserting that the GMC inadequately supports farmers’ watershed conservation efforts, and lacks understanding of and concern for farmers’ needs and interests. The city’s climate plan implicitly considers farmers to be private providers of public adaptation benefits, but the plan’s programs do not sufficiently address the socioeconomic changes responsible for agriculture’s decline, and therefore may undermine the government’s climate adaptation objectives.
The findings illuminate the challenges for urban governance of agriculture. Farms do not become instruments for urban sustainability, development, and food security simply because the government creates policies for them. Urban governments will be more likely to achieve their goals for agriculture by being transparent about their objectives, honestly evaluating how well those objectives fit with farmers’ needs and interests, cultivating genuine partnerships with farmers, and appropriately compensating farmers for the public benefits they provide.
This study focused on Mexico City, which is celebrated for its agricultural traditions and policies. The study examined: 1) the functions of urban and peri-urban agriculture that the Government of Mexico City (GMC) manages and prioritizes; 2) how the GMC’s policies have framed farmers, and how that framing affects farmers’ identity and purpose; and 3) how the inclusion of agrarian activities and lands in the city’s climate-change adaptation plan has created opportunities and obstacles for farmers. Data was collected through participant observation of agricultural and conservation events, informal and semi-structured interviews with government and agrarian actors, and analysis of government documents and budgets.
Analysis of policy documents revealed that the GMC manages agriculture as an instrument for achieving urban objectives largely unrelated to food: to conserve the city’s watershed and provide environmental services. Current policies negatively frame peri-urban agriculture as unproductive and a source of environmental contamination, but associate urban agriculture with positive outcomes for development and sustainability. Peri-urban farmers have resisted this framing, asserting that the GMC inadequately supports farmers’ watershed conservation efforts, and lacks understanding of and concern for farmers’ needs and interests. The city’s climate plan implicitly considers farmers to be private providers of public adaptation benefits, but the plan’s programs do not sufficiently address the socioeconomic changes responsible for agriculture’s decline, and therefore may undermine the government’s climate adaptation objectives.
The findings illuminate the challenges for urban governance of agriculture. Farms do not become instruments for urban sustainability, development, and food security simply because the government creates policies for them. Urban governments will be more likely to achieve their goals for agriculture by being transparent about their objectives, honestly evaluating how well those objectives fit with farmers’ needs and interests, cultivating genuine partnerships with farmers, and appropriately compensating farmers for the public benefits they provide.
ContributorsBausch, Julia Christine (Author) / Eakin, Hallie C (Thesis advisor) / Lerner, Amy M (Committee member) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Committee member) / Redman, Charles L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The resilience of infrastructure essential to public health, safety, and well-being remains a priority among Federal agencies and institutions. National policies and guidelines enacted by these entities call for a holistic approach to resilience and effectively acknowledge the complex, multi-organizational, and socio-technical integration of critical infrastructure. However, the concept of holism is seldom discussed in literature. As a result, resilience knowledge among disciplines resides in near isolation, inhibiting opportunities for collaboration and offering partial solutions to complex problems. Furthermore, there is limited knowledge about how human resilience and the capacity to develop and comprehend increasing levels of complexity can influence, or be influenced by, the resilience of complex systems like infrastructure. The above gaps are addressed in this thesis by 1) applying an Integral map as a holistic framework for organizing resilience knowledge across disciplines and applications, 2) examining the relationships between human and technical system resilience capacities via four socio-technical processes: sensing, anticipating, adapting, and learning (SAAL), and 3) identifying an ontological framework for anticipating human resilience and adaptive capacity by applying a developmental perspective to the dynamic relationships between humans interacting with infrastructure. The results of applying an Integral heuristic suggest the importance of factors representing the social interior like organizational values and group intentionality may be under appreciated in the resilience literature from a holistic perspective. The analysis indicates that many of the human and technical resilience capacities reviewed are interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent in relation to the SAAL socio-technical processes. This work contributes a socio-technical perspective that incorporates the affective dimension of human resilience. This work presents an ontological approach to critical infrastructure resilience that draws upon the human resilience, human psychological development, and resilience engineering literatures with an integrated model to guide future research. Human mean-making offers a dimensional perspective of resilient socio-technical systems by identifying how and why the SAAL processes change across stages of development. This research suggest that knowledge of resilient human development can improve technical system resilience by aligning roles and responsibilities with the developmental capacities of individuals and groups responsible for the design, operation and management of critical infrastructures.
ContributorsThomas, John E. (Author) / Seager, Thomas P (Thesis advisor) / Clark, Susan (Committee member) / Cloutier, Scott (Committee member) / Fisher, Erik (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Producing, transforming, distributing, and consuming food requires a multitude of actors, from the microbes in the soil to the truck drivers, from the salesperson to the bacterial life that supports digestion. Yet, the global food system – far from being neutral – unequally provides and extracts resources around the globe to serve and protect the needs of some, while excluding and/or oppressing others and producing trauma in the process. Drawing on feminist scholarship and permaculture research – two fields that discuss the importance of care but only rarely work together – and using social science methods, I explore how to integrate care into food systems, and what are the outcomes of such an integration. I first bring together the voices of 35 everyday experts from Cuba, France, and the United States (Arizona) and perspectives from ethics of care, creation care, indigenous scholars, and permaculture specialists, and I use grounded theory to develop a definition of care in food systems context, and a conceptual map of care that identifies motives for caring, caring practices and their results. I then discuss how caring practices enhance food systems’ adaptive capacity and resilience. Next, I study the relationship between a subset of the identified caring practices – what is recognized as “Earth care” – and their effect on well-being in general, and Food Well-Being more specifically, using three case studies from Arizona based on: (1) interviews of school teachers, (2) interviews of sustainable farmers, (3) a survey with 96 gardeners. There, I also discuss how policies and cultural transformations can better support the integration of Earth care practices in food systems. Then, I examine how urban food autonomy movements are grassroots examples of integration of care in food systems, and how through their care practices – Earth care, “People care” and “Fair share” – they can serve as a catalyst for social change and contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Lastly, I conclude with recommendations to strengthen a culture of care in food systems, as well as limitations to my research, and future research directions.
ContributorsGiraud, Esteve Gaelle (Author) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Thesis advisor) / Cloutier, Scott (Thesis advisor) / Samuelson, Hava (Committee member) / Chhetri, Netra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation focuses on the endogenous conceptualization of development and sustainability emerging from settled non-native indigenous communities in the transborder region of Baja California, México. The study is comprised of interview data collected from a sample of 19 (n=19) self-identifying non-native indigenous community members and three key informants residing in various municipalities of the state. The purpose of this research is twofold, on the one hand, it aims to highlight the ways global north conceptualizations and praxis of development and sustainability in México have failed to include indigenous communities and fall short of creating feasible or appropriate practices of development and sustainability for marginalized communities. On the other, it focuses on the future perspectives of non-native indigenous communities to understand what development and sustainability look like for marginalized indigenous communities in México. The research finds that non-native indigenous communities’ settled in Baja California align more closely with the notion of Buen Vivir than development, in efforts to implement holistic approaches to progress and the conservation of their ethnic identity, culture and funds of knowledge. Additionally, the data reveals the bordering processes within ethnic and cultural scapes in Baja California’s society incentivizes merging funds of knowledge to achieve community recognition and progress. In essence, the experience and mobilization of settled non-native indigenous communities in Baja California break the perceived dichotomy between rural and urban, traditional and modern. The research also has some auxiliary findings: (1) indicating that in the state of Baja California the proliferation of development and sustainability discourses are polarized and relatively neglected in public discourses, despite its close transborder relationship with the US and growing concerns of development and sustainability in the northern nation. Second, indigenous women have been and continue to be important catalysts in community formation and representation.
ContributorsMora-Castillo, Brenda (Author) / Cruz-Torres, Maria l (Thesis advisor) / Wutich, Amber (Committee member) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Dear reader, I hope you will read this entire dissertation. If you are reluctant because of its length, I invite you to contact me for a conversation instead. Over the past eight years I have been a part of three unfolding histories: colonialism, sustainability science, and the Atlas of Creative Tools (the Atlas). In this dissertation I describe how I am a part of these histories. I advocate for partnering them so that the Atlas is used by people in the field of sustainability science to advance cognitive justice in their work. This advocacy is supported by research conducted using a mixed-methods approach. I combine qualitative methods used to study each of the three histories with the experiential knowledge I gained from being a part of them. Throughout the dissertation I move back and forth between academic research and experiential knowledge. Each informs the other. This back-and-forth movement is itself a method to interrogate the assumptions of dissertation writing. My purposes for doing so are two-fold. I want to honor the dissertation as a form of knowledge production that can promote cognitive justice while also pointing out how it hinders it. Additionally, the back-and-forth interrogation method involves using creative tools from the Atlas in the text itself. This demonstrates how the Atlas can be used to promote cognitive justice while producing knowledge in sustainability science. I structure this dissertation to aid you in four ways. First, I provide a view of sustainability science as a contested space that people can and do use to advance cognitive justice. Second, I write about my research and analysis of the Atlas so that my descriptions can be used right away by other practitioners who are working with the Atlas. Third, my methods for interrogating the dissertation itself are meant to be used, modified, and built on by others. Finally, I hope that the connections I make between the Atlas and sustainability science are helpful for your work, and that they inspire you to try the Atlas and see how you can use it to promote cognitive justice in your own contexts.
ContributorsNock, Matthew (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis advisor) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Thesis advisor) / Lerman, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023