Piglets and Perspectives: Exploring Sustainability Communication Through Participatory Filmmaking

The goal of this research was to conduct a qualitative study applying narrative theory to participatory video methodologies in order to better understand how the process of filmmaking can be used to create a method of sustainability communication. To do this, the study collaborated with individuals who are currently practicing different types of sustainable agriculture on small farms in southern New Hampshire. A group of five farms participated in a new method of filmmaking designed to blend specific elements of participatory video technique with principles of narrative theory. This method included camera training, filmed personal interviews, participants filming their own farming methods, a group editing session and public screenings of the group film. The filmmaking process resulted in the successful emergence of shared sustainability themes, documented through the on-camera interviews, participant narration and visual imagery. Participants reported increased confidence in communicating their sustainability practices. The use of film and visual narrative revealed the art of everyday life for the participants, creating a narrative intimacy and social connections within the group that are evident on viewing their filmed stories. The study yielded results that can be used by both participatory video and narrative inquiry practitioners, and successfully created a new method for sustainability communication. The study also resulted in the 42-minute documentary film Piglets and Perspectives; an emergent narrative revealing innovations in sustainability on small farms in southern New Hampshire, as told by the farmers themselves. This dissertation is accompanied by the documentary film [.mp4], the milkweed short film [.mp4], and the pilot project film [.mp4]. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Piglets and Perspectives: Exploring Sustainability Communication Through Participatory Filmmaking

The goal of this research was to conduct a qualitative study applying narrative theory to participatory video methodologies in order to better understand how the process of filmmaking can be used to create a method of sustainability communication. To do this, the study collaborated with individuals who are currently practicing different types of sustainable agriculture on small farms in southern New Hampshire. A group of five farms participated in a new method of filmmaking designed to blend specific elements of participatory video technique with principles of narrative theory. This method included camera training, filmed personal interviews, participants filming their own farming methods, a group editing session and public screenings of the group film. The filmmaking process resulted in the successful emergence of shared sustainability themes, documented through the on-camera interviews, participant narration and visual imagery. Participants reported increased confidence in communicating their sustainability practices. The use of film and visual narrative revealed the art of everyday life for the participants, creating a narrative intimacy and social connections within the group that are evident on viewing their filmed stories. The study yielded results that can be used by both participatory video and narrative inquiry practitioners, and successfully created a new method for sustainability communication. The study also resulted in the 42-minute documentary film Piglets and Perspectives; an emergent narrative revealing innovations in sustainability on small farms in southern New Hampshire, as told by the farmers themselves. This dissertation is accompanied by the documentary film [.mp4], the milkweed short film [.mp4], and the pilot project film [.mp4]. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Self-Mating in the Definitive Host Potentiates Clonal Outbreaks of the Apicomplexan Parasites Sarcocystis neurona and Toxoplasma gondii

Tissue-encysting coccidia, including Toxoplasma gondii and Sarcocystis neurona, are heterogamous parasites with sexual and asexual life stages in definitive and intermediate hosts, respectively. During its sexual life stage, T. gondii reproduces either by genetic out-crossing or via clonal amplification of a single strain through self-mating. Out-crossing has been experimentally verified as a potent mechanism capable of producing offspring possessing a range of adaptive and virulence potentials. In contrast, selfing and other life history traits, such as asexual expansion of tissue-cysts by oral transmission among intermediate hosts, have been proposed to explain the genetic basis for the clonal population structure of T. gondii. In this study, we investigated the contributing roles self-mating and sexual recombination play in nature to maintain clonal population structures and produce or expand parasite clones capable of causing disease epidemics for two tissue encysting parasites. We applied high-resolution genotyping against strains isolated from a T. gondii waterborne outbreak that caused symptomatic disease in 155 immune-competent people in Brazil and a S. neurona outbreak that resulted in a mass mortality event in Southern sea otters. In both cases, a single, genetically distinct clone was found infecting outbreak-exposed individuals. Furthermore, the T. gondii outbreak clone was one of several apparently recombinant progeny recovered from the local environment. Since oocysts or sporocysts were the infectious form implicated in each outbreak, the expansion of the epidemic clone can be explained by self-mating. The results also show that out-crossing preceded selfing to produce the virulent T. gondii clone. For the tissue encysting coccidia, self-mating exists as a key adaptation potentiating the epidemic expansion and transmission of newly emerged parasite clones that can profoundly shape parasite population genetic structures or cause devastating disease outbreaks