This thesis examines four communities in the Lower Fraser Basin (Burnaby,
Richmond, Langley and Abbotsford), as a case study for examining the "ecology
of environmentalism". I have compared two "low environmentalism"
communities (Richmond and Abbotsford), and two which have a significantly
larger field of environmental groups (Burnaby and Langley).
The research included 43 interviews (37 with leaders of grassroots
environmental groups and a mailout questionnaire which was sent to one leader
of each of the 71 groups in the four municipalities (64% response rate). Together
this research amounts to 82% coverage of all the environmental groups in the
four municipalities. Using this data, I argue that the differences between the
municipal areas are not very well explained either in terms of the themes in
Resource Mobilisation Theory, in either of the major theories of social
movements and the State, or in terms of standard demographic variables
associated with environmentalism (community size, gender, income, education,
ethnicity, or occupation).
I have therefore used the themes of "civil society" and "public spheres"
(Allario 1995; Calhoun 1996; Cohen and Arato; Fraser 1992; Habermas 1989;
Walzer 1991) to compare the four municipalities. I suggest that the more holistic
approach especially as proposed by Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato (1992),
provides a better way of analyzing both the actions and the ecology of
environmental groups in the Lower Fraser Basin.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6565 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | McKinnon, Andres Michael |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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