Browsing by Author "Pickering, Kathleen, advisor"
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Item Open Access Creating a tribal national park: barriers that constrain and mechanisms that promote collaborative and adaptive environmental management(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Lovell, Ashley, author; Pickering, Kathleen, advisor; Carolan, Michael, committee member; Reid, Robin, committee member; Taylor, Peter, committee memberIn an era of rapid social and environmental change, frequent public protests and the documented decline of ecosystem health have demonstrated that traditional environmental management approaches are ill equipped to address public concerns and adapt to changing ecosystems. To address these challenges, researchers and communities have combined the concepts of collaboration and adaptation to create adaptive co-management. This approach acknowledges that socio-ecological systems are complex and constantly in flux while emphasizing public participation and collaborative learning as mechanisms to create novel solutions to social and ecological challenges. Adaptive co-management encourages land managers to collaborate with local communities to monitor the health of their relationship and the ecosystems they seek to protect. While in theory, adaptive co-management should allow land managers and communities to learn from previous experiences and explore new alternatives to improve natural resource management, few studies empirically analyze the process and outcomes of this new approach. I collaborated with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the National Park Service to evaluate a case study of adaptive co-management in the South Unit of Badlands National Park. Working closely with the Tribe and the Park Service I conducted a participatory evaluation of this collaborative relationship. Data was collected through participant observation, in-depth interviews and a review of policy documents and local archives. A key academic finding from this study is that while the Tribe possessed fewer resources and less authority than the Park Service, they exercised power in the co-management process because they spoke on behalf of indigenous knowledge and Native American sovereignty. A key applied finding from this study is that while Tribe and the Park Service share the desire to create the nation's first Tribal National Park in the South Unit, their motivations for this goal vary considerably. To encourage the sustainability of this adaptive co-management effort, the Park Service and the Tribe must iteratively evaluate their relationship, recognize the benefits and challenges of diverse perspectives, and build social networks within and between their collaborating organizations. This case study illuminates mechanisms, such as collaborative learning and the combination of tribal consultation with co-management, that can encourage more equitable and adaptive environmental management in the face of social and environmental change.Item Open Access "Destination Pine Ridge": a longitudinal case study of barriers to collaboration in culturally appropriate tourism initiatives(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Akers, Andrea, author; Pickering, Kathleen, advisor; Leisz, Stephen, committee member; Cottrell, Stuart, committee memberAccording to Ross et al. (2011) there are many barriers to genuine collaboration and natural resource co-management between Indigenous groups and westernized government groups but do these barriers exist for partnerships with Indigenous groups in other realms? This thesis is a specific case study of a partnership between the Pine Ridge Area Chamber of Commerce, the National Park Service, and several other South Dakota entities involved with the region's tourism industry. This partnership, as a strategy to increase tourism to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota through education, has had to tackle many of the same barriers as Ross et al. (2011) argues exist for natural resource co-management attempts, but have also made significant achievements. A participatory epistemology and Pierre Bourdieu's (2009[1977], 1991, 1986) concept of capitals elaborate the case study analysis. This partnership has a long way to go before it is truly and equally collaborative, and has to confront many barriers until Lakota knowledge is incorporated into NPS interpretation. It has, though, accomplished many important steps to facilitating a mutually beneficial partnership have been accomplished, as well as individual growth and understanding among the participants.Item Open Access Knowledge integration in transdisciplinary research: a case study of the socio-ecological complexity project(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Allegretti, Arren Mendezona, author; Laituri, Melinda, advisor; Pickering, Kathleen, advisor; Thompson, Jessica, committee member; Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria, committee memberKnowledge integration has been crucial for gaining a holistic picture of the inner workings of socio-ecological systems. Integrating local and scientific knowledge sustains biological and global cultural diversity, and may fill gaps in understanding that cannot be elucidated by individual scientific disciplines. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research teams face the challenge of collaborating and integrating their varying disciplinary paradigms and epistemologies along with stakeholders' local knowledge for understanding and adapting to global and local environmental issues. Communication and knowledge integration across funders, researchers, and research end-users in transdisciplinary research are critical for meeting diverse stakeholder needs and genuinely engaging multiple knowledge systems. These knowledge systems may include a combination of researcher and local ecological knowledge embedded in institutions, disciplines, and cultures. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and apply knowledge integration tools for examining socio-ecological systems and transdisciplinary research communication. Specifically, I examine the Socio-ecological Complexity (SEC) project as a case study. The SEC is a pseudonym for an actual project examining the role of Community-Based Rangeland Management (CBRM) institutions in influencing the resilience of Mongolian socio-ecological rangeland systems to climate change. I apply two tools for the integration of knowledge within SEC: participatory reflection and participatory mapping. I apply participatory reflection among the SEC research team and provide stakeholder engagement indicators for reflecting, communicating, and incorporating the needs of funders, researchers, and research end users as major stakeholder groups in transdisciplinary research. These specific indicators allow transdisciplinary research teams to assess the current level of knowledge integration, communicate and target stakeholder needs that may influence project outcomes in communicating their research. To integrate the local ecological knowledge (LEK) of research end users, I apply participatory mapping to explore herders' knowledge of their rangelands and their perceptions of socio-ecological boundaries imbedded in their pastures. The process of participatory mapping revealed emic narratives on physical and human demarcated boundaries influencing landscapes, adaptive practices, and local governance arrangements for accessing pasture resources. Participatory mapping and participatory reflection serve as tools for integrating and communicating diverse knowledge systems in transdisciplinary research. To examine how knowledge and world views may be communicated among diverse actors in transdisciplinary research, I provide a reflexive account of the role of voice in transdisciplinary fieldwork. My reflexive account reveals the complex network of actors and how identity, language, financial structures and hierarchy within a multi-cultural and transdisciplinary project shape actors' voices and opinions. The application of knowledge integration tools (participatory reflection and participatory mapping) and the open dialogue about the role of voice in transdisciplinary research provide diverse views for evaluating transdisciplinary research outcomes and analyzing coupled human-environment relationships in socio-ecological systems.Item Open Access Power inequity and the repatriation right in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Green, Christopher, author; Pickering, Kathleen, advisor; Van Buren, Mary, committee member; Rollin, Bernard, committee memberThe Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 sought to empower Native communities to reattain their ancestral human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. Issues both in theory and in practice have arisen in regard to the law and have made implementation difficult and controversial. This paper seeks to analyze the power provided by the legislation and how it applied in the practice of compliance. This power dynamic is then reconciled within the repatriation ethic of the United States as well as internationally. As the scope broadens, an international repatriation ethic emerges that establishes repatriation of culturally affiliatable human remains and sacred objects as a basic human right for indigenous peoples.Item Open Access Wolakota: the face of ReZilience in "post"-colonial America(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Chesnais, Aude, author; Pickering, Kathleen, advisor; Hempel, Lynn, committee member; Taylor, Peter, committee member; Leisz, Steve, committee memberThis research aims at exploring the features of sustainable social change in Lakota country. More specifically, it uses the concept of resilience to analyze local expressions of social change and challenge the colonial framework and discourse. It focuses on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and compares two scales of social change at the grassroots and larger organizational level. This research's project follows a participatory and decolonial approach and emerged from a specific local need formulated by local grassroots projects managers to bring attention to the lack of resources and visibility they encounter. Reservations are historically defined territories embedded in colonial power dynamics that create socio-economic vulnerability and multi-dimensional hardships in tribal members' everyday life. What they face remains perceived and defined primarily by an etic/outsider perspective, which hinders expressions of local resilience. Ground observations indicate that creative sustainable projects with unique features actually emerge in response to local stress. Yet, by western definitions, these projects are not visible and do not qualify as resilient. This research questions the western hegemonic use of resilience in Lakota country and explores endogenous expressions of social change that shape alternative definitions and challenge the colonial discourse.