Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Opportunity and Decisions about Environmental Change

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates how people's access to resources, perceptions of risk, beliefs and values, and ties to localities affect their decisions in response to change in their environment. Specifically, this study uses ethnographic research to look at how residents of two cities with similar heightened risks of flooding but very different populations make decisions about flooding and more broadly about environmental change. This research will contribute to understanding how these residential decisions may reshape geographies in coastal cities. Findings of this study will be relevant to stakeholders interested in increasing awareness of environmental change and in particular in communicating its risks. They will be useful also for designing adaptations to change, which can be enriched by taking these micro-level decisions into account. This study entails comparative, longitudinal ethnographic research spanning two years. It involves participant observation and interviews with residents from various socioeconomic backgrounds in two flood-prone neighborhoods. Two decision-making questions are explored: First, how do residents perceive the risks of living in low-lying neighborhoods that flood frequently? Second, how do residents make decisions about adaptation, moving, and staying, and what do these processes entail? Comparison of the two cities allows investigation of how coping with climate change varies greatly in two distinctive regimes. Attention is paid to three variable dimensions in particular: state and other support for residents, the durability of housing stock, and residents' awareness of environmental change. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.