This study identifies environmentalist themes in the fiction and nonfiction of Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, and Willa Cather and argues that these ideals are interdependent upon the authors’ humanistic objectives. Focusing on these three authors’ overlapping interest in topics such as women’s rights, environmental health, and Native American history, this dissertation calls attention to the presence of a frequently unexplored but distinct, traceable feminist environmental ethic in American women’s regional writing. This set of beliefs involves a critique of the threats posed by a patriarchal society to both the environment and its human inhabitants, particularly the women, and thus can be classified as proto-ecofeminist. Moreover, the authors’ shared emphasis on the benefits of local environmental knowledge and stewardship demonstrates vital characteristics of the bioregionalist perspective, a modern form of environmental activism that promotes sustainability at a local level and mutually beneficial relationships among human and nonhuman inhabitants of a naturally defined region. Thus, the study ultimately defines a particular form of women’s literary activism that emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century and argues for these authors’ continued theoretical relevance to a twenty-first-century audience increasingly invested in understanding and resolving a global environmental predicament.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore a local food movement from the perspectives of small-scale, sustainable farmers in rural Jackson and Union Counties in Southern Illinois. This research applies three tenets of bioregionalism: (1) bioregional place identity, (2) foodshed ecology, and (3) community resilience as a thematic framework to examine the dimensions of a local food movement. Nine self-identified sustainable local food producers were individually interviewed and guided by four primary research questions derived from the bioregional thematic framework. The researcher seeks to understand the farmers’ perceptions of the (1) drivers, barriers, and limitations of the southern Illinois local food movement, (2) bioregional place identity and characteristics of the southern Illinois foodshed, (3) ecological integrity of the local food movement, and (4) local food access and community resiliency within the farmers’ bioregion. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative data methodologies. Key findings emerge from the data that respond to the four primary research questions: (1a) Farmers are driven by ecological and social values, as well as personal fulfillment to provide an alternative food system; (1b) Farmers face a barrage of economic, political, social, and ecological barriers that challenge the local food movement; (1c) The market-based, profit-driven economic system is the cause of most barriers and limitations in the southern Illinois food movement; (2) The farmers’ sense of place and the bioregion’s terrier indicate a strong and cohesive bioregional place identity for the farmers within the southern Illinois local food movement; (3) Farmers do not conflate scale with sustainability and are critical of the ecological impact of their work; (4) Farmers acknowledge bioregional food to be largely inaccessible in their bioregion, however, this consideration extends beyond most farmers’ capabilities. The significance of these findings indicate that the where of food matters beyond the conflation that scale determines the ecological and social integrity of food production. This further suggests that bioregionalism is a useful paradigm to analyze the dimensions of local food movements, to deepen the understanding of the place of local food.

What are the potentials and limitations of constructing a regional building culture in and around Bozeman, Montana? Starting with the theories of architectural regionalism, this thesis takes a pragmatic approach to synthesizing several topics—history, geography, technology, economy—and situating them within Bozeman’s specific context in order to assess the implications of constructing a regional building culture. This potential shift is viewed primarily as technological, but with the understanding that technology is not just objects but also a set of practices and knowledge embedded in the co-evolving structures of society. The main outcome of the research is therefore recommended points of action for builders, designers, and policymakers that would encourage the development of regional building practices, which are shown to have technological and economic benefits when compared with universal technologies. Limitations are discussed in terms of barriers to realizing these benefits, as well as possible problems and contradictions. To start, the various discourses of architectural regionalism are summarized to provide a theoretical footing. Next comes an overview of the history of Bozeman’s building culture, with an emphasis on how universal technologies and their related cultural assumptions have obscured the potential for regional building practices. This leads to the question of defining the region, which is taken up first in an analytical way, then more concretely by using geographic information systems (GIS) to map the region’s climate. Analysis of climatic variables suggests technological practices that could reduce consumption of fossil-fuel energy. These are discussed conjointly with a critique of regional materials and an assessment of how these regionally appropriate alternatives might emerge within conventional technological systems. The economic implications of regional technologies are discussed in terms of benefits and draw-backs. Finally, all these findings are put within the context of information gathered through interviews, which leads to concluding recommendations for action and critical reflections. / text

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

My thesis examines the bioregional movement in North America; its vision, values, strategies and tools for community building and networking towards a more sustainable society. The interrelated problems of the over-consumption of natural resources, the dominant cultural construct of people as consumers, and the decline of human community provide the context for my research in radical planning. The goal of my inquiry into bioregionalism (which places cultural change at the center of its paradigm for societal transformation) is to reveal lessons for a "post-Marxist" theory of civil society. This latter theory proposes a dual strategy of horizontal communicative action among associations in civil society combined with strategic vertical campaigns to democratize both state and corporations. However, it offers no ecological or cultural critique of consumption. My thesis addresses this gap. A civil society theory that incorporated lessons about consumption and cultural transformation from bioregionalism might, in turn, have lessons about integrating horizontal and vertical strategies for bioregionalism which has not sufficiently theorized its political economic strategy. I use two concepts, "social capital" and "eco-social capital", to analyze bioregional experiences. Eco-social capital refers to social capital informed by an ethic of human kinship with the natural world. Using these concepts, I first show how ecological kinship corresponds with the conservative and respectful use of resources in aboriginal societies. My study of bioregional praxis shows that story telling, earth ceremonies, ecological restoration, etc. bond bioregional actors to each other and to the "community-of-all-beings" in particular places. Social and eco-social capital provides them with spiritual resources for dedicating lives to long-term societal transformation while eschewing commodity consumption. Bioregionalists' experiences and strategy support a diverse and democratic civil society which respects and cares for the natural world. An eco-centric civil society theory would strategize long-term generational transformation in both cultural and political economic terms. Bioregional horizontal community and networking would be complemented by strategic vertical campaigns to curb the power of both state and corporations over civil society, thus strengthening democracy and a sustainable strategy for greatly reduced consumption.

In recent years, as globalization has taken a toll on North Americans’ “sense of place,” there has been a swelling interest in the identification of bioregions: spaces delineated by their natural borders and shaped by the cultures that arise within them. Bioregionalism, the movement that arose from this scalar shift, emphasizes the “reinhabitation” of bioregions through a deep understanding and attachment between residents and their watershed and habitat. This thesis argues for a shift to bioregional-scale environmental governance in the Cascadian bioregion (the Pacific Northwest) via an interstate compact. Using the Great Lakes bioregion as a comparable case study, this thesis goes on to examine the effects of neoliberalization on two resulting cross-border institutions, the Great Lakes Commission and the Council of the Great Lakes Region. It ultimately concludes that a shared ecological identity is imperative for preserving the ethos of bioregionalism in future policymaking, rather than just the scale. In an effort to create a tangible path towards the shaping of this identity, a communications framework is presented. Based on lessons from the Great Lakes case studies, this framework utilizes “condensation symbols” and the “triple appeals principle” as possible tools for Cascadian activists to leverage moving forward.

Greta literatūros ir kitų menų sąveikos (su daile, muzika, teatru, kinu) pastebimas fenomenalus reiškinys, turintis įtakos žodžio ir atvaizdo derinimo tradicijos susidarymui. Taigi literatūros teksto ir fotografijos sintezė – postmodernistinės lietuvių kultūros išskirtinumas. Postmodernistinė ideologija sąlygoja ir literatūrologinę discipliną, mokslinio pažinimo sritį kreipiant į neklasikinius, nestandartinius reiškinius. Pavyzdžiui, baigiamojo darbo šaltiniai – knygos, sujungusios esė tekstus ir fotografijas – Raktai į Lietuvos miestus (pirma ir antra dalys). / Alongside literature and an interaction between arts (art, music, theater, cinema) there is observed the phenomenon, influencing a new tradition in the harmonization of word and image. The synthesis of literary text and photography is the oneness of postmodern Lithuanian culture. Postmodern ideology determines literaturology discipline like scientific recognition field towards non-classical and non-standard phenomena. For instance, the material of the thesis is the books where essays and photography are coupled – Keys to the Cities of Lithuania (first and second parts).

I am a non-Aboriginal teacher from the South, living and teaching in the Canadian North, traditional home to Aboriginal people for thousands of years. The Aboriginal people of the North have come to know the land deeply, their knowing rooted in an intimate understanding of and respect for the natural world. Coming to this land as a foreigner, I believe it is incumbent upon me to live and interact in the community in a way that respects the culture and way of life of the community. In this inquiry, I explore what it is to live respectfully, by relating to place and community from a position of unknowing, locating myself moment to moment as I am involved and implicated teaching and living within the flow of the community and the rhythms of the land. Specifically, I explore what it is to be connected and entangled, yet have no permanent roots. For this purpose, I draw on my experiences teaching and living in a number of northern locations throughout the taiga sub-arctic biome and represent experiences and understanding through mixed genre and multimedia such as poetry, descriptions, stories, photos and journal entries. The aim of my inquiry is to bring forth and theorize my emergent understanding of my self-in-relation to the curricular lifeworld of the school and community in the place where I teach.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Accompanying material : 1 folded map in pocket. Includes bibliographical references (p. 346-370). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.