Partners No More: Relational Transformation and the Turn to Litigation in Two Conservationist Organizations

The rise in litigation against administrative bodies by environmental and other political interest groups worldwide has been explained predominantly through the liberalization of standing doctrines. Under this explanation, termed here the floodgate model, restrictive standing rules have dammed the flow of suits that groups were otherwise ready and eager to pursue. I examine this hypothesis by analyzing processes of institutional transformation in two conservationist organizations: the Sierra Club in the United States and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). Rather than an eagerness to embrace newly available litigation opportunities, as the floodgate model would predict, the groups\u27 history reveals a gradual process of transformation marked by internal, largely intergenerational divisions between those who abhorred conflict with state institutions and those who saw such conflict as not only appropriate but necessary to the mission of the group. Furthermore, in contrast to the pluralist interactions that the floodgate model imagines, both groups\u27 relations with pertinent agencies in earlier eras better accorded with the partnership-based corporatist paradigm. Sociolegal research has long indicated the importance of relational distance to the transformation of interpersonal disputes. I argue that, at the group level as well, the presence or absence of a (national) partnership-centered relationship determines propensities to bring political issues to court. As such, well beyond change in groups\u27 legal capacity and resources, current increases in levels of political litigation suggest more fundamental transformations in the structure and meaning of relations between citizen groups and the state

OSUL 2013 Innovation Task Force Final Report

Final report of the Innovation Task Force. Part of the OSUL 2013 Libraries Visioning Task Forces process.The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history

Media content created for Museums without Walls: An interactive resource exploring connections between Orkney and the Hudson's Bay Company

During the summer of 2021 the Stromness Museum together with the University of Dundee launched a pilot project to explore around 80 objects in their collections relating to Orkney’s history with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. Our aim was to design an interactive online resource which brought together 3D scans and photographs of the museum’s collections together with insights and stories from different perspectives, including Orcadian, Cree, Métis and Inuit voices. What resulted was a compelling and diverse variety of material offering fresh insights and contemporary connections to this complex period of shared history.  The resource is freely available online and as a touchscreen exhibit inside the Stromness Museum in Orkney. https://www.stromnessmuseum.org.uk/sites/stromnessmuseum.org.uk/files/hbc/index.html Data and file overview The archived material consists of 3D scanned objects from the Museum’s collections in .glb format; photographs of objects and family photographs relating to personal accounts featured in the resource; soundbites from various people interviewed for the resource about their family heritage and the Hudson’s Bay Company; curator written blurbs; and artwork relating to the resource interface. Sharing and access information The material (with the exception of a walk-through screen capture video) is not publicly accessible for download and re-use without requested consent. This is because much of the materials concern Indigenous objects, stories and imagery and we do not wish for this to be re-used elsewhere without prior consent from the individuals represented. All material is available to view (but not download and re-use) on the Stromness Museum’s website: (https://www.stromnessmuseum.org.uk/sites/stromnessmuseum.org.uk/files/hbc/index.html) Methodological information Our approach for generating material as part of this project followed a collaborative co-curation methodology which facilitated curation of the resource to be led by the contributions and engagements of the individuals and communities we worked with. The content maps and walk-through screen capture video are made available under a CC-BY-NC license, for full details of this license copy and paste the following link into your browser, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0