DDIG: Public Land and the American Political Imagination: An Ethnographic Study of Governance and Democracy in the United States

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Conflict over the use of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management in the American Intermountain West threaten both the health of fragile ecosystems on public lands and the social and economic well-being of adjacent rural communities. These conflicts are underlain by different perceptions of the landscape as well as by different understandings of the meaning of "public." This research by a student in Sociocultural Anthropology provides a detailed ethnographic analysis of the politics of the conflict over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, a site where conflict has been intense and persistent since the creation of the Monument in 1996. The study will examine the political dynamics of the conflict from the intra-community to the local, state, and national levels using a combination of participant observation, formal and informal interviews, archival research, and document analysis. The project will analyze the conflict over time in order to illuminate the process by which citizens relate to the federal, multi-level, democratic government of the United States and the political ideals that inform this process. Broader Impacts: This study has practical significance for those seeking to understand and ameliorate natural resource conflicts in the United States. An improved understanding of the political dynamics of the conflict over the management of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument can be used to help mitigate conflicts over the use of public land and to inform public land management policy. The study also has theoretical significance for those seeking a better understanding of American political ideals and the American political system in order to identify loci of democratic change, to analyze the institutional realignment that is occurring in society as the role of government narrows, and to evaluate assumptions about the wholesale export of this system to other countries. The study will also contribute to the education of a doctoral student in Anthropology.