RAPID: Collaborative Research: 3dWomen: Exploring Three Decades of Women's Groups in Sustainable Development and the Impact of Social Media on Women's Professional Networks

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

Our understanding of why people come together to create social networks is evolving as social media grow in complexity and popularity. Of particular interest is understanding how social networks emerge and are enacted across geography, culture and over time ? especially when they are generated by a polarizing event such as global climate change. This project, 3dWomen, will study the emergence and enactment of a network among women that has coalesced around the World Congress on Sustainable Development (CSD) that meets every ten years (1992, 2002, and will convene again in June 2012). The 3dWomen project takes advantage of a unique opportunity for three dimensional research on the emergence of this network across time (three decades), space (global networks) and culture. This in-depth and multidimensional research is only possible because, in response to the great sense of urgency to address the global climate crisis, the women?s caucus which will reconvene in 2012 will bring together the women from the CSD events in 1992, 2002 and 2012. Our analysis - based on interviews, archival data and social network analysis - will allow us to elucidate how different networking mechanisms at and between the CSD events, contribute to women persisting to engage in networks on specialized fields such as sustainability, science and climate change.