Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cultural Economic Understandings of Work under Ecological Restoration

George Washington University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Responses to the scale of environmental degradation today requires the coordination of multiple workers with specialized labors, skills, and knowledge systems. Existing research exploring the relationship between environmental action and labor tend to focus on individual actors who participate voluntarily. Less is known about how workers contracted in projects of ecological restoration come to understand themselves and their labor. This doctoral dissertation research investigates the efficacy of ecological restoration through its impacts on worker behavior. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, findings from this research will be shared with governmental and non-governmental organizations, and others with the aim of improving working conditions for those actively involved in ameliorating environmental pollution and degradation. The project also endeavors to enhance public understanding of science and the scientific method, specifically regarding the scientific management of ecological health. While restoration projects are critical for ensuring the integrity of the biosphere, the research hypothesizes that the responsibilities of carrying them out are unevenly distributed, often along lines of pre-existing social inequalities. It extends theoretical perspectives from the anthropology of work and environmental anthropology, while integrating under-represented perspectives into the history and sociology of science. The doctoral researcher uses a combination of ethnographic, visual, and archival methods (including infrastructural mapping, reflexive memos, participant observation, life history interviews, workflow observation, and textual and discourse analysis) to investigate the infrastructural labor of ecological restoration and demonstrate how environmental injustice plays out in various settings. 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.