Author: Alex

Ethics is one of those subjects that is interesting to talk about in the hypothetical sense, but once an ethical concern is raised, it can be difficult to work around that concern, which could jeopardize an entire research project.  My ethnographic proposal to work with the oyster harvesters of Apalachicola Bay raises at least of couple of ethical concerns.

The first concern revolves around completely shutting off the Bay to oyster harvesting to allow the oysters to fully replenish. At issue here is the ethicality of denying a person or family the ability to earn a living. Can the Bay justifiably be closed? On one hand, yes, it can, because if it is not, oyster harvesters will only be able to work in the Bay for a short while longer as the oyster population continues to decline. On the other hand, no, it is not ethical to close the Bay due to the potential immediate loss of a large portion of a individual’s or family’s yearly income. Do scientists have the authority to tell harvesters that they can’t earn money off the oysters? Does the state government have the authority to do that?

A second concern revolves around the ethics of leaving the Bay open to oyster harvesting. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, allowing full harvests to be brought to market will likely destroy the oyster population before it can replenish. If the Bay is left open, it could mean that the livelihoods of many more oyster harvesters will be put in jeopardy in a shorter time period. If a small number of harvesters are allowed to bring large oyster catches to market, it removes the possibility for other harvesters to earn money from the oysters. Eventually, few or possibly no harvesters would be able to catch enough oysters to justify the practice of oyster harvesting. Do a small number of oyster harvesters have the right to ruin the livelihoods of other harvesters?

As I work to carry this project into action, these are certainly concerns that will be raised along with a host of other potential ethical issues. However, balancing the immediate loss of personal or family income with the potential destruction of the Bay’s ecology is certainly a prominent concern as this issue is studied and debated.

For the third project update, I assigned myself to have completed approximately half of my final project, which will consist of a literature review of environmental justice ethnographies and an ethnographic research proposal focused on the oyster harvesting situation in Apalachiocola Bay. I have finished writing the lit review for U.S.-based ethnographies and am debating whether I should include international ethnographies as well. I still need to write my proposal for gaining access to the Bay community. What I have written so far is by no means a finished product, and some heavy editing and reorganization will likely be required before I’m finished. In the interest of saving space on the blog, I have sent my 3,500 word proposal to Dr. Kazmer via email for her input.

At first glance, it does not seem as though conducting a content analysis seems very daunting. On the other hand, after getting some class time to actually perform a small content analysis, I found that the process is much more involved than the readings made it seem.

I chose an article from the Tallahassee Democrat about the proposed closure of Apalachicola Bay to oyster harvesting. I started by examining the framework the author used, trying to determine if the story was framed using an environmental perspective, an economic perspective, a social perspective, etc. After I determined which framework was used to write the article, I started pulling statements either written by the author or from interviews with users of the Bay to support the framework and began to write research questions from there.

A proper content analysis requires a lot of time and re-evaluation of prior thoughts about content. I wasn’t sure if I was doing this activity the right way when I started, but I think I’ve found a way to help organize and orient myself to conducting a content analysis. This method of qualitative analysis will certainly prove useful to me as I continue in my program.

 

Like many of my classmates, before this activity I had always heard of coding qualitative data, but I never really had an idea of what was involved or how to actually do it. The only coding experience I’ve had was simply reading statements and assigning the statement to a pre-determined category.  I knew coding from scratch is a much more involved process, but I was unsure of where to even start.

At the start of this activity I quickly became a fan of the memo writing process. Writing down my initial thoughts, no matter how mundane or unimportant they seemed at the time, helped me to begin to form a larger picture from the tiny amount of data we examined.  Organization skills are extremely important in the coding process, which I feel will allow me to find enjoyment in the process as I code in the future.  I enjoy putting the pieces of a puzzle together, especially when those pieces lead to a larger narrative.

I know we have to stick to the time constraints imposed on the class, but I wish we could have had more practice with coding. I feel like I was only starting to get the hang of it right as the activity ended, and I would have appreciated more time spent to help get in more of a routine or groove with the data.

For my second update, I have completed a short annotated bibliography of the 21 articles I’ve found.

Allen, S., & Gough, A. (2006). Monitoring environmental justice impacts: Vietnamese-American longline fishermen adapt to the Hawaii swordfish fishery closure. Human Organization, 65(3), 319-328.

This ethnography examines the effect that the ban on fishing swordfish would have on Vietnamese-American fishers based out of Hawaii. At the time of ban, the group that was predicted to be the most severely effected was the Vietnamese-American fishers. The authors attempt to analyze the social effects of the ban on targeting swordfish, such as the effects on family and community cohesion and changes in household income. This study also attempts to analyze the effects of the ban on the larger longline fishing community.

Barikor-Wiwa, D. (1997). The role of women in the struggle for environmental justice in Ogoni. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 21(3), 46-52.

This ethnography explores the successful environmental justice movement that occurred in Ogoni, Nigeria, in 1993. In the face of outside corporate oil exploration being conducted by Shell Oil, Ogoni women had to organize the whole Ogoni community to fight against Shell Oil and the dictatorial Nigerian government. Strengthening the cultural ties of the Ogoni as well as giving Ogoni women a larger political role in local villages brought about the success of the grassroots movement of Ogoni women.

Brockington, D. (2005). The politics and ethnography of environmentalisms in Tanzania. African Affairs, 105, 97-116. doi: 10.1093/afraf/adi071.

This article explores the relationship between environmentalism and local, regional, and central governments in Tanzania. Each sector of the government views environmentalism as a necessity, but differs in how environmentalism is utilized as a tool for politicking, scapegoating, and manipulating public discourse.

Brown, P., & Pellow, D. N. (2009). The political economy of environmental justice: Evidence on global and local scales. Nature and Culture, 4(2), 208-221. doi: 10.3167/nc.2009.040206

The authors provide a review of environmental justice movements, but also situate these movements in the larger political economy of the environment. Furthermore, the argument is made that environmental activists, in their attempts to rid their local communities of environmental ills, often do not consider where the waste is going, if it is not going to their community. Companies and governments often make deals that distribute the waste to the global South, which presents an entirely new host of environmental problems to the people in those countries.

Cabrejas, A. H. (2012). “Laciana is black. Greens go away!” Environmentalists as scapegoats in a mountaintop removal conflict in Laciana Valley, Spain. Organization & Environment, 25(4), 419-436. doi: 10.1177/108602661246973

This ethnography analyzes the environmental and social conflicts surrounding the mountaintop removal of coal in Spain. The author examines the different narratives being used by supporters and detractors of mountaintop removal practices, and comes to the conclusion that the success of the anti-mountaintop removal groups has been largely limited by violence against those groups as well as the supporters using environmental groups as “scapegoats.”

Checker, M. (2001). “Like Nixon coming to China”: Finding common ground in a multi-ethnic coalition for environmental justice. Anthropological Quarterly, 74(3), 135-146.

Checker examines how previously divided activist groups in Brooklyn, New York, came together to promote environmental justice in their neighborhoods. By combining their resource pools, formerly adversarial activists were able to create a unified narrative around environmental justice as well as minimize the ethnic and racial differences that previously divided them.

Checker, M. (2005). From friend to foe and back again: Industry and environmental action in the urban South. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 34(1), 7-44.

Taking a slightly different approach to environmental justice, Checker takes a political economy approach to a local environmental issue. She analyzes how the relationship between communities, industry, and state institutions have come together to create toxic contamination that disproportionately affects the lower-income and racial minorities of the community.

Checker, M. (2007). “But I know it’s true”: Environmental risk assessment, justice, and anthropology. Human Organization, 66(2), 112-124.

Checker attempts to uncover how environmental risk assessments only engage a certain population and routinely disregard the experiences of the poor and people of color. These occluded experiences often lead to increased perceptions of environmental risk in the marginalized communities.

Chi, C. C. (2001). Capitalist expansion and indigenous land rights: Emerging environmental justice issues in Taiwan. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2(2), 135-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14442210110001706145

In an effort to blend research and activism, Chi examines the structural conditions in Taiwan that allow for marginalized tribes to continuously be abused by the government when it comes to disposing environmental waste. Furthermore, the paper examines how community groups have emerged to take back control of their land to protect it from future harm.

Di Chiro, G. (2004). Living is for everyone: Border crossings for community, environment, and health. Osiris, 19, 112-130.

Di Chiro examines the work of Teresa Leal, an environmental justice advocate working along the U.S.-Mexican border. Examining how Leal works within a globalized world after the advent of NAFTA, this ethnography looks at how the environmental, economic, and public health conditions of the region are changing due to increased transnational trade.

Flocks, J., & Monaghan, P. (2003). Collaborative research with farmworkers in environmental justice. Practice Anthropology, 25(1), 6-9.

The researchers used a community-based participatory approach to gather data about exposure to pesticides among farm workers in Florida. Heavy pesticide exposure disproportionately affects the lower-income farm workers, who are often of Mexican heritage. Through their work, the authors offer an intervention campaign that will help the farm workers reduce pesticide-related health effects.

Grineski, S. E. (2006). Local struggles for environmental justice: Activating knowledge for change. Journal of Poverty, 10(3), 25-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J134v10n03_02

 

This ethnography takes a community-based participatory approach that also examines the political economy of local environmentalism in Phoenix, Arizona. In an effort to establish environmental justice, university researchers worked with community activists to gather opinions of health and environmental concerns in a low-income Latino neighborhood. Analysis of these surveys reveals how justice can be brought to a marginalized community through the activation of knowledge in certain legal and political structures.

 

Haenn, N., & Casagranda, D. G. (2007). Citizens, experts, and anthropologists: Finding paths in environmental policy. Human Organization, 66(2), 99-102.

 

This paper offers researchers advice on how they should navigate their roles as within a community. Specifically, the authors offer possible roles such as “translator, advocate, researcher, knowledgeable authority, coalition builder, and activist” (p. 100). The authors assert that the researcher needs to understand his or her role when it comes to public policy-making, especially where environmental issues are concerned because these issues are oftentimes a local issue, and the issue needs to be sold to individuals further up the hierarchy as something that needs to be taken seriously.

 

Harper, K. M. (2001). Introduction: The environment as master narrative: Discourse and identity in environmental problems. Anthropological Quarterly, 74(3), 101-103.

 

In this brief introduction, Harper outlines how the environment has become a “master narrative,” such that talking about the environment has become a method of political organizing and debate. The concept of the threatened environment, argues Harper, has allowed a larger discourse to occur that encompasses issues of toxicology, ethnicity, gender, and risk perceptions, as well as many others.

 

McDonald, J. (2009). Bulldozers, land, and the bottom: Environmental justice and a rapid assessment process. Practicing Anthropology, 31(1), 4-8.

            In Lexington, Kentucky, a proposed roadway extension threatened to destroy an old part of the city, which was mainly inhabited by low-income African-American and European American settlers. The rapid assessment process, a qualitative process using open-ended interview questions, attempted to identify and understand the needs and desires, especially as they relate to the culture, of this small portion of the community. Results found strong historical, social, and cultural ties to the community. Additionally, there was a sense that community members were being lied to, and this sense of dishonesty led the community members to reject the proposed project.

Moberg, M. (2001). Co-opting justice: Transformation of a multiracial coalition in Southern Alabama. Human Organiztion, 60(2), 166-177.

 

This article examines the debate over the construction of one of the nation’s largest phenol plants near Mobile, Alabama. An opposition movement originated in middle-class white neighborhoods. This movement protested against the plant due to the likely drop in home values in the area. This group attempted to incorporate the voices of lower-class African-Americans by appealing to the likely negative effects to local public health. This strategy had mixed success, but highlights how the strategies and claims of a movement can change when participants from an outside group become involved.

Palamar, C. (2010). From the ground up: Why urban ecological restoration needs environmental justice. Nature and Culture, 5(3), 277-298. doi: 10.3167/nc.2010.050304

Urban restoration projects, which seek to protect urban ecosystems, are often fraught with conflicts that arise from a mismatch between social realities and traditional restoration processes. The author argues that the larger environmental justice movement can provide a framework by which ecological restoration practitioners can operate in their local neighborhoods. Using New York City’s Green Guerillas, a community gardening program, as a case study, the author sets out to provide an outline for effective urban restoration.

 

Peace, A., Connor, L. H., Trigger, D. (2012). Environmentalism, culture, ethnography. Oceania, 82(3), 217-227.

 

This article offers a brief summary of the anthropological study of local environmental issues and the insights that anthropologists have to offer regarding the study of environmental issues. The authors point out that environmental issues are largely rooted in historical, religious, cultural, ethnic, and gendered terms. The authors argue that it is only possible to understand local environmental issues through these lenses.

Porter, R. & McIlvaine-Newsad, H. (2013). Gardening in green space for environmental justice: Food security, leisure, and social capital. Leisure/Loisir, 37(4), 379-395. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2014.906172

This ethnography examines how environmental justice was achieved through the implementation and growth of a community garden. The garden was originally conceived as a method to create environmental justice by combatting increasing produce costs and a lack of knowledge regarding commercial growing practices. Results indicate that as participation grew in the garden, the participants began to realize that the garden brought with it social benefits as well as food security.

 

Robyn, L. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and technology: Creating environmental justice in the twenty-first century. American Indian Quarterly, 26(2), 198-220.

The author asserts that the traditional values held for centuries by American Indians, especially values concerning the deep-rooted connection between the land and the people, have been legislated out of practice as Western Europeans expanded across the North American continent and imposed their hegemony on the local people. The environmental policies of the natives, which were based on the notion of reciprocity with the environment, were regarded as primitive, and did not help the causes of Western Europeans. Due to their primitive ways, and also due to the increased colonial imperialism occurring at the time, Natives have been largely ignored when environmental policies were determined. Throughout the article, the author argues that environmental injustices against American Indians have been codified into law to the detriment of the natives while benefitting European colonialists.

Vasudevan, P. (2012). Performance and proximity: Revisiting environmental justice in Warren County, North Carolina. Performance Research, 17(4), 18-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.712245

This performance ethnography examines how researchers interact within a community, asserting that researchers need to perform their roles with more intentionality. The author then asserts that performance as a mode of analysis can help people better understand their daily interactions with the landscape. Furthermore, public performances, asserts the author, allow participants to express emotional attachment to the environment and portray “cultural memory” in ways that text-based scholarship cannot.

Ask a question

My hypothetical study will attempt to examine how oyster harvesters in Apalachicola Bay are handling the declining oyster harvests in the Bay. Apalachicola Bay has seen its harvests dwindle in size in recent years (Sommer, 2013) due to water use issues facing the Apalachicola-Chatahoochee-Flint river system.   These oyster harvests are a prime source of income for approximately 2,700-4,000 of Franklin County, Florida’s 11,000 residents for some portion of the year (Sommer). The “tri-state water wars” (Ritchie, 2014, para. 1) have largely been precipitated by growing populations in Georgia and Alabama, mainly in the Atlanta, Georgia area (START, 2014) as well as increased agricultural water use in Georgia and Alabama (Havens et al., 2013). My research question, then, is: How are Apalachicola Bay oyster harvesters negotiating their changing identities in the face of unprecedented economic and environmental issues.

Pick a case

The particular case I will study is oyster harvesters in Apalachicola Bay who have reported through a preliminary survey that they have participated in the oyster industry for at least one year and derive at least 25% of their yearly income from the industry. These requirements are slightly arbitrary, but having a least one year’s experience in the industry and losing 25% or more of a person’s yearly income will likely have a large effect on the life of the individual and that person’s family. The purpose of these minimum requirements for inclusion is to allow for greater insight into the changing circumstances that oyster harvesters are facing. I will attempt to interview as many oyster harvesters as possible in order to reach a saturation point of experiences.

Describe the type of case

I will use the holistic, single-case design for this study. I will use this approach because no logical subunit of analysis can readily be identified at the outset of the research. Additionally, the oyster situation in Apalachicola Bay is such a unique phenomenon that it will likely provide enough information to justify documenting and analyzing. As mentioned above, I will choose participants based on their answers to a previously distributed survey. Because I’m choosing a single-case approach, I will need to be sure that I minimize the potential for misrepresentation and that the outcomes are representative of the population under investigation. This will be done through the preliminary survey and formative research. I will use in-depth interviews to reach a saturation point. I will attempt to balance the interviews between a questioning and conversational nature.

Type of data and analysis

I will gather data that attempt to answer my overarching research question. More specifically, I will ask about specific methods that oyster harvesters are using to relieve some of the financial burdens of lost income, how their families are coping with their changing identities, how oyster harvesters are adapting their skill set to other industries in the region, and how oyster harvesters plan to help mitigate future ecological issues of a similar nature while still being able to make a living off of the bay. I will analyze my data using the constant comparative method as outlined by Corbin and Strauss (1998) to examine, compare, synthesize, and categorize the data I’ve gathered.

How could the findings differ from what they could be if I did a study on the same question but with more participants/sites/data and fewer data types?

I think the biggest change in data would occur if I conducted the study over a series of sites in Florida and Alabama. The change would be a result of the different options oyster harvesters would have if they decided to leave the industry altogether. In Alabama, as opposed to Florida, harvesters may have more local agriculture options for work, which may lend better to the skill set that they have already developed from their time in the Bay. I still think, though, that no matter how many individuals participated in the study, a saturation point of identity negotiation techniques and experiences would occur rather quickly. This would be due to the limited number of options an individual has in the region unless he or she is willing to completely uproot his or her family and move to an entirely new location.

For this week’s activity I interviewed three people about how they prepare to shop for a new vehicle.  At the beginning of the activity I felt I would try to probe the different activities in which people engage while shopping for a new car. However, I quickly realized that the questions for the semi-structured and critical incident interviews were too similar to elicit different answers.  The similar answers could also be a result of the notion that most people in the United States take similar approaches to purchasing a vehicle, from initial research, to test driving, to negotiating, etc.

The semi-structured and critical incident interviews were too restrictive to me.  I did not feel as though I could probe for more in-depth information to responses that I found intriguing.  I felt as though I had to return to the interview protocol immediately and could not ask more questions that I had not already written down.  I know the purpose of these types of interviews is to attempt to answer certain questions and keep the interview moving in a specific direction, but the formats do seem restrictive when it comes to probing for more information.  This could also be a result of the extremely limited time in which we had to complete the activity.  There would undoubtedly be more time in the field to probe for more information.

The unstructured interview, however, allowed for more probing on my part without feeling guilty about abandoning my interview protocol, mainly because there was only one question on my interview protocol for this type of interview. This interview did not feel as awkward to me and seemed more conversational.  Despite its relative freedoms, I can easily see the danger to this type of interview.  The interviewer could easily become lost in the details of a specific line of inquiry and no longer see the forest for the trees.  Not having at lease a semi-defined protocol could lead to the interviewer wasting his or her time as well as the participant’s, and come home empty-handed with no valuable data.  As long as the interviewer is capable of keeping the interview on track, however, I think this interview allows for greater ability to probe interesting responses for more information.

I have successfully completed the first task of my project: to collect my articles. I had the goal of finding 20-25 environmental justice ethnographies. I have found 22 so far. Most of the studies have taken place in the United States, with five of them having occurred outside of the United States. By the next update, I will have completed a short annotated bibliography of the articles.

Landis Green seems to be the heart of old campus at FSU. It is simultaneously a thoroughfare for students and employees, those wishing to interact with familiar or unfamiliar others, or those wishing to find some solitude. I found a spot to sit on a small brick structure located on the southeast corner of the green. Upon my initial approach I found a group of friends sitting on a bench near the centrally located fountain on the green talking to each other. I could not decipher what was being said, but the interactants were enjoying themselves, laughing at a joke one of them had said. Across the fountain a female student was laying on a bench reading a book. A little further away another female student was sitting in a hammock slung to a tree listening to music and reading a book. In an open area of the green a group of dog owners were interacting with each other and playing with each other’s dogs. It was unclear whether the owners knew each other, but I would guess that the male owners were friends and the female owners were friends. There seemed to be some potential romantic interest between owners. The males were flirting with the females, showing interest in the small dogs the females brought with them. Those who were walking through the green, either by themselves or in pairs or small groups, did not seem to be in any hurry; it was a simple leisurely stroll through the green to pass time between classes. On the surface, Landis Green seems to be a simple thoroughfare through campus, but a closer look reveals a socializing function of the space as well as provides solitude for those desiring some down time from class.

The biggest takeaway I got from this experience is that I need to be much more detail oriented about the group or area I’m observing.  In order to provide more details in my notes, I need to take more time closely observing the people, and take note of clothes and other accessories, which can allow me to make inferences about the activities in which the people are engaging.  As I wrote my narrative, my lack of details became more apparent.  I was unable to recall what anyone was wearing, which did not allow me to make inferences about their activities on that day.  This lack of detail also hindered my ability to create a vivid picture of the people on the green in my narrative.

After reading my partners’ narratives, this idea of detail orientation was strongly reinforced.  Both of my partners included tremendous amounts of detail in their descriptions, which greatly aided my ability to create a clear picture of their observations in my head. The questions my partners asked about my narrative were even focused on providing more details about my observation.  However, because I did not take extremely detailed notes, I had trouble answering their questions.

I also need to be more aware of where I situate myself in relation to the people I’m observing.  In an effort to remain unseen, I chose a spot far away from anybody.  However, because of this, I also could not hear any of the conversations that were taking place.  Having the ability to know what people are talking about can provide many clues as to why a person or group of people are in a place at a specific time.  Knowing the content and context of a conversation will also provide more details to help create a better picture in the  mind of the reader.

Overall, I think I had a decent first effort at producing an ethnographic observation. Now, however, I know some areas that need to be improved if I am to continue using this method of scientific inquiry.

Why do I want to conduct qualitative research? Put simply, I grew tired of reading about which factors explained which percentage of the variance in an experiment. I grew tired of reading about researchers attempting to create perfectly sterile and replicable lab conditions while reducing the complexities of human existence into numbers. While quantification is necessary to communicate many research findings to a lay public, I find sorting through the messiness that is humanity to be much more fulfilling. In doing so we are able to extract the nuances of human behavior and describe them in rich detail. Some of these nuances and qualities may never be large enough to be quantified, but that does not mean they are not important to the individuals who exhibit the qualities. They do have value, and qualitative research helps others see the value of those qualities and nuances.