In an era of dawning anthropogenic climate change, people of atoll nations face grievous threats to their future. Rising sea levels, warming oceans, and changing weather patterns conspire with economic isolation, rapidly growing populations, and the loss of traditional livelihoods to perpetuate conditions of dependence and wardship which threaten the very existence of their island homes. This project examines an atoll nation of the equatorial Pacific, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where the outward appearance of pristine tropical paradise belies a tragic history of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing at the hands of the US military. While the islands have been consistently framed in rhetoric which stresses vulnerability, smallness and unsustainability, this project contests the limited scope of the regimes of power in Oceania by considering how the independent, grassroots actions of local groups of islanders have achieved surprising and dramatic results in defiance of the policies and planners at the top. In developing a design proposal for the contemporary condition, this thesis examines the persistent ways in which the islands and people are framed by outsiders. This project engages with the social, political and natural history of the atolls: common tropes are challenged by the actions and agency of a people who have dealt with imperialist outsiders in sophisticated and conscious ways. It explores the traditional cultural practices which enabled the ancestors of the Marshallese people to flourish, and suggests that it is at the level of actions by ordinary people that the most fertile potentials lie, and are in fact already being played out. What forms of urbanism might be appropriate in this environment? How can islanders effectively manage their landscape and engage with the natural processes - as their ancestors once did to a remarkable degree? By pairing traditional techniques with modern technologies, a proposal is synthesized which could empower the contemporary Marshallese to transform their landscape and develop sustainable livelihoods in this extreme and dynamic environmental condition: to build a future which offers the best aspects of both traditional and contemporary ways of life.

In an era of dawning anthropogenic climate change, people of atoll nations face grievous threats to their future. Rising sea levels, warming oceans, and changing weather patterns conspire with economic isolation, rapidly growing populations, and the loss of traditional livelihoods to perpetuate conditions of dependence and wardship which threaten the very existence of their island homes. This project examines an atoll nation of the equatorial Pacific, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where the outward appearance of pristine tropical paradise belies a tragic history of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing at the hands of the US military. While the islands have been consistently framed in rhetoric which stresses vulnerability, smallness and unsustainability, this project contests the limited scope of the regimes of power in Oceania by considering how the independent, grassroots actions of local groups of islanders have achieved surprising and dramatic results in defiance of the policies and planners at the top. In developing a design proposal for the contemporary condition, this thesis examines the persistent ways in which the islands and people are framed by outsiders. This project engages with the social, political and natural history of the atolls: common tropes are challenged by the actions and agency of a people who have dealt with imperialist outsiders in sophisticated and conscious ways. It explores the traditional cultural practices which enabled the ancestors of the Marshallese people to flourish, and suggests that it is at the level of actions by ordinary people that the most fertile potentials lie, and are in fact already being played out. What forms of urbanism might be appropriate in this environment? How can islanders effectively manage their landscape and engage with the natural processes - as their ancestors once did to a remarkable degree? By pairing traditional techniques with modern technologies, a proposal is synthesized which could empower the contemporary Marshallese to transform their landscape and develop sustainable livelihoods in this extreme and dynamic environmental condition: to build a future which offers the best aspects of both traditional and contemporary ways of life.

Thesis (M.S. in Systems Engineering Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2010. / Thesis Advisor(s): Calvano, C. N. ; Second Reader: Whitcomb, C. "June 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on July 15, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Department of Defense Architectural Framework, DoDAF, Systems View, Operational View, Missile Defense. Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-76). Also available in print.

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[pt] A presente tese visa analisar como questões relacionadas ao meio ambiente - em especial, às mudanças climáticas - interagem com os entendimentos locais acerca da segurança, em comunidades que se mostram profundamente afetadas por esses problemas e que, ao mesmo tempo, encontram-se profundamente excluídas dos debates teóricos de segurança. Em meio aos Estudos de Segurança Internacional (ESI), a crise climática persiste em ser analisada a partir de uma dinâmica estadocêntrica, militarizada e de nós x outros. Quando não é esse o caso, os desafios ambientais são enquadrados a partir de uma lógica de segurança humana, animada por um entendimento moderno e liberal acerca do que a segurança deveria ser e, portanto, desconsiderando entendimentos e necessidades locais. (Shani, 2017). Ao focar em narrativas não-científicas sobre segurança, esta tese visa expor as contingências dos discursos hegemônicos verificados em meios aos ESI que, longe de se mostrarem racionais e fundamentados em uma descrição autêntica da realidade, contribuem para agravar os desafios enfrentados por alguns indivíduos, como os Marshalleses. Animados pelos discursos racionais promovidos por pensadores realistas e dos estudos estratégicos, durante a Guerra Fria, as Ilhas Marshall se tornaram palco de testes de 67 armas termonucleares. Tais armas – consideradas pelos teóricos e pelos policy-makers como fonte de poder e como meio legítimo de se obter segurança – vaporizaram ilhas, forçaram a evacuação permanente de comunidades, romperam com a organização social matriarcal e baseada na posse de terras característica das Ilhas Marshall e com os laços ancestrais entre indivíduos e seus atóis. Mais recentemente, o arquipélago e seus habitantes se mostram novamente em risco, dessa vez, não pelas práticas de segurança das superpotências, mas por uma ameaça não intencional e despersonalizada. As mudanças climáticas se caracterizam como a mais recente forma de intervenção, sendo precedidas por uma longa lista de práticas coloniais e violentas direcionadas ao arquipélago. Como uma nação constituída por atóis, é muito provável que, como resultado dos efeitos climáticos, as Ilhas Marshall se tornem inabitáveis ainda ao longo deste século. Para os Marshalleses, tal cenário significaria uma perda incomensurável em termos territoriais, espirituais e culturais. Ao analisar casos como o das Ilhas Marshall, a tese busca explorar quais novos significados e racionalidades de segurança podem emergir, ou se tornar mais proeminentes, face aos desafios trazidos pela mudança do clima. Desta forma, a teoria da segurança ontológica é apresentada como um marco teórico fértil para analisar casos em que o que parece em risco não é apenas a segurança física de estados nacionais, indivíduos e ecossistemas, mas também a preservação de espaços sociais e materiais e de um senso de continuidade biográfica. (Giddens, 1990) A partir deste movimento crítico, busca-se enfatizar outros modos de se refletir e de se vivenciar a (in)segurança, de modo a lançar luzes sobre como o significado deste conceito mostra-se indissociável dos contextos políticos, culturais e emocionais em meio aos quais os discursos de segurança emergem. / [en] This thesis seeks to analyze the ways through which issues related to the environment, especially climate change, interact with local conceptualizations of security in communities which are severely threatened by these problems and, at the same time, profoundly excluded from security studies debates. Within International Security Studies (ISS), the climate crisis persists in being analyzed through state-centered, militarized and us x others dynamics. When this is not the case, environmental challenges are placed within a human security logics, animated by a modern and liberal understanding of what is supposed to be secure and thus, disregarding the role of local understandings and needs. (Shani, 2017) By focusing on non-scientific security narratives, I expect to unveil the contingencies of the hegemonic discourses within ISS that, rather than being rational and based on an authentic description of reality, contribute to aggravating the security challenges faced by some individuals, such as the Marshallese. Animated by rational security discourses promoted by realist and strategist thinkers, during the Cold War, the Marshall Islands was turned into a testing ground for 67 thermonuclear weapons. The bombs - considered by security theorists and policy-makers both as a source of power and as a legitimate way to obtain security – vaporized islands, forced the permanent evacuation of entire communities, disrupted the Marshallese land-based matrilineal organization and their ancestral ties to their atolls. Nowadays, the Marshallese archipelago and its inhabitants are once again being challenged: not by the military security goals of superpowers, but by an unintended and depersonalized threat. Climate change is the latest form of intervention, being preceded by a long list of other colonial and violent practices. As a low-lying atoll nation, it is very likely that the Marshall Islands will become inhospitable until the middle of the century as a result of the deteriorating climate effects. For the islanders, it will represent an immeasurable loss of territorial, spiritual and cultural references. In relying on cases such as the Marshallese, I aim to explore what new meanings and rationalities of security can emerge, or become more prominent, in the face of the challenges brought on by climate change. With this aim, the ontological security theory is presented as an insightful framework for the analysis of these cases where, what seams at risk is not only a physical survival of states, individuals and ecosystems, but also the preservation of a stable social and material environment of action and a sense of biographical continuity. (Giddens, 1990) With this critical move, I seek to emphasize other ways of thinking and experiencing (in)security; thus, enlightening how the meaning of this concept is undissociated from the political, cultural and emotional contexts from which security discourses emerge.

This work analyzes the ecological, physical, emotional and health impacts of the US nuclear testing done in the Marshall Islands in the mid-20th century.

The U.S. Marshallese population is one of the fastest growing Pacific Islander populations in the United States. The purpose of this study was to identify how U.S. Marshallese students could be empowered and engaged in their learning through clearly identified indicators that educators could apply within their classrooms and schools. The indicators have been established on a historical, cultural, and linked perceptions of student learning as identified by U.S. Marshallese students and teachers. Pacific Islanders consisted of a variety of populations with varying cultures and ethnic diversity. This study has been conducted using a postpositivism worldview, Marshallese migration is not a limited phenomenon of displacement, but a migratory change that must be embraced by communities and educators. Educators must understand how to empower and engage U.S. Marshallese students in their learning. This study was designed utilizing an interpretative descriptive naturalistic ethnography qualitative research design with middle school students and teachers to gather qualitative data from U.S. Marshallese students that will lead to a contextual understanding of empowering and engaging U.S. Marshallese students in their learning. The findings of this qualitative research study can be applied by educators to empower and engage U.S. Marshallese students in their learning on a daily basis in schools and classrooms. Culture understanding, positive relationship building, and the design of culturally connected intrinsically student motivated learning activities is the foundation and critical component of empowering and engaging U.S. Marshallese students in school and classrooms for improved student learning.