International Environmental Justice: Building the Natural Assets of the World’s Poor

In recent years, vibrant social movements have emerged across the world to fight for environmental justice –- for more equitable access to natural resources and environmental quality, including clean air and water. In seeking to build community rights to natural assets, these initiatives seek to advance simultaneously the goals of environmental protection and poverty reduction. This paper sketches the contours of struggles for environmental justice within and among countries, and illustrates with examples primarily drawn from countries of the global South and the former Soviet bloc.

Environment as Master Narrative: Discourse and Identity in Environmental Conflicts (Special Issue Introduction)

Although postmodern philosophers proclaimed the death of the master narrative of enlightenment (Lyotard 1984), the environment has become a quintessentially global narrative. Throughout the world, people are imagining the environment as an object threatened by human action. Environmentalism proposes to organize and mobilize human action in order to protect the endangered environment (Milton 1995). Sociologist Klaus Eder posits that ecology has become a “masterframe,” transforming the field of political debate (Eder 1996). The articles assembled in this special issue investigate the rise of the environment as a master narrative organizing political practices

Outer South East Livable Infill Project

The City of Portland, Oregon has experienced unprecedented population growth in the last decade, much of which has been accommodated through infill development. Not all infi ll development has contributed to meeting design goals, prompting the City’s Bureau of Planning to launch the Infill Design Project in 2003. The Infill Design Project aims to improve the design of multi-dwelling and rowhouse development outside the Central City. This study supports the Infill Design Project by studying the design of new, multi-family infi ll development in a section of Outer Southeast Portland, Oregon. Through public outreach, this study identifies community design preferences and analyzes whether these preferences are being met in the private realm, the public realm and contextually. The studyfurther identifies reasons for the current state of multi-family infill development and provides recommendations to improve design quality of multi-family infill. This project was conducted under the supervision of Deborah Howe, Barry Messer, and Ethan Seltzer

Sustaining Urban Forests in Post-Industrial Cities: Place Attachment, Ecology, and Stewardship Potential

People value urban green spaces for enjoying nature and socializing with friends, family, and other park users. However, overgrown urban forests without clear access points can be perceived as dark, dangerous, and wild places. As many cities experience reduced budgets, they struggle to maintain green spaces established in more prosperous times. We conducted a descriptive analysis of how constrained parks budgets and subsequent city decisions about maintenance are associated with patterns of forest use, place attachment, and social capital and their impacts on the potential for stewardship of forested parks. We selected Springfield, Massachusetts for our study because it is typical of former industrial cities with highly constrained budgets. We used both qualitative and quantitative analyses of field observations and interviews with park users and nearby residents. We found that access to forests and park use were the strongest predictors of place attachment, and that on-site services, access, and maintenance level were the strongest predictors of use rather than surrounding socioeconomic conditions. Users valued the ecology of the sites, even while park managers highlighted invasive plants as a major maintenance issue. Even though many sites had low levels of use, there remains a strong sense of ownership, community, and safety. Taken together, there is a great deal of untapped stewardship potential in the city, with few organized avenues for users and residents to engage in stewardship. The findings support the hypothesized ‘virtuous circle’ whereby higher levels of maintenance and access beget greater use and attachment, which motivates stewardship. Alternatively, the more neglected forested parks become, the less use they will have, and the more unknown and unloved they will become. In high use sites, some outreach may be all that is needed to move into the ‘virtuous circle,’ while greater interventions will be needed in low use sites with no facilities, and these sites are the ones at greatest risk. Since the long-term sustainability of urban forests requires that local residents appreciate, use, and steward them, Springfield and other post-industrial cities need to find creative models for supporting greater involvement of residents in park stewardship while recognizing these residents frequently inhabit communities under stress

A Phenomenon Resembling Early Superhumps in a New SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova with a 2-Hour Orbital Period

We investigate K2BS5, an optical transient that we identified in Campaign 13 of the Kepler/K2 archives by the "K2 Background Survey", and classify it as a new SU UMa-type dwarf nova. Using the light curve generated from Kepler's long-cadence observation mode, we analyze the dwarf nova during quiescence and superoutburst. Following 20 days of quiescence at the start of the observation, the system entered a superoutburst lasting 12 days, after which it experienced at least one rebrightening. K2BS5 clearly meets the criteria for an SU UMa star, but at the peak of the superoutburst, it also shows double-wave oscillations consistent with the spectroscopic orbital period, a phenomenon that closely resembles early superhumps in WZ Sge stars. While we do not classify K2BS5 as a WZ Sge system, we discuss how this phenomenon could complicate efforts to use the suspected detection of early superhumps to distinguish SU UMa-type dwarf novae from the recently recognized class of long-orbital-period WZ Sge systems.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

GRB 191016A: A Long Gamma-Ray Burst Detected by TESS

The TESS exoplanet-hunting mission detected the rising and decaying optical afterglow of GRB 191016A, a long Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) detected by Swift-BAT but without prompt XRT or UVOT follow-up due to proximity to the moon. The afterglow has a late peak at least 1000 seconds after the BAT trigger, with a brightest-detected TESS datapoint at 2589.7 s post-trigger. The burst was not detected by Fermi-LAT, but was detected by Fermi-GBM without triggering, possibly due to the gradual nature of rising light curve. Using ground-based photometry, we estimate a photometric redshift of $z_\mathrm{phot} = 3.29\pm{0.40}$. Combined with the high-energy emission and optical peak time derived from TESS, estimates of the bulk Lorentz factor $\Gamma_\mathrm{BL}$ range from $90-133$. The burst is relatively bright, with a peak optical magnitude in ground-based follow-up of $R=15.1$ mag. Using published distributions of GRB afterglows and considering the TESS sensitivity and sampling, we estimate that TESS is likely to detect $\sim1$ GRB afterglow per year above its magnitude limit.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Teaching Ethnographic Methods for Cultural Anthropology: Current Practices and Needed Innovation

Historically, ethnographic methods were learned by cultural anthropology students in individual research projects. This approach creates challenges for teaching in ways that respond to the next generation’s calls to decenter anthropology’s White, heteropatriarchal voices and engage in collaborative community-based research. Analyzing syllabi from 107 ethnographic methods training courses from the United States, we find the tradition of the “lone researcher” persists and is the basis of ethnographic training for the next generation. There is little evidence of either active reflection or team-based pedagogy, both identified as necessary to meet career opportunities and diversification goals for the wider field of cultural anthropology. However, we also find that, by centering the completion of largely individual research projects, most ethnographic methods courses otherwise adhere to best practices in regard to experiential and active learning. Based on the analysis of syllabi in combination with current pedagogical literature, we suggest how cultural anthropologists can revise their ethnographic methods courses to incorporate pedagogy that promotes methodologies and skills to align with the needs of today’s students and communities

Outer Southeast livable infill project

120 pp. Bookmarks supplied by UO. Includes maps and figures. Most recent activity June, 2004. Captured May 16, 2008.This study supports the Infill Design Project by studying the design of new, multi-family infill development in a section of Outer Southeast Portland, Oregon. Through public outreach, this study identifies community design preferences and analyzes whether these preferences are being met in the private realm, the public realm and contextually. The study further identifies reasons for the current state of multi-family infill development and provides recommendations to improve design quality of multi-family infill.... This study recommends four approaches to improve the design quality of multifamily infill in the selected study area. [From the document