Statement of Research:
The core questions behind my research asks why certain participatory processes and technological artifacts rearrange social boundaries and disrupt existing power structures. Of particular interest is how these projects are entered into environmental sustainability discourse at the intersection of digital cultures and ecological practices.
A basic layout to this research might look like this:
Secondary Question:
How can power transitions be studied to identify higher ratios of sociocultural preservation to technological gain in communities where tight nature/culture bonds exist?
Tertiary questions:
- To what extent can these projects be used to promote social and environmental justice?
- Can projects like citizen-based environmental sensing and community knowledge mapping create these opportunities?
- Can community based participatory research be used to implement localist approaches?
Secondary Question:
Does the presence of local knowledge systems – such as indigenous oral culture or traditional skill sharing in general allow greater opportunities for taking advantage of participatory and appropriation processes?
Tertiary questions:
- Specific to Native American communities – how does Natural Law and holism highlight concerns of collective responsibility?
- How do these values influenced or parallel practice impacted by media consumption such as in the open source commons, hacker culture, etc?
- How can we leverage culturally situated knowledge as a hybrid form of lay expertise?
Secondary Question:
Do participatory environmental justice projects at different scale and origin interrogate nature in new ways?
Tertiary questions:
- How do digital media and appropriated technologies develop unique and multidimensional interpretations?
- What are the broader implications of ubiquitous technology systems leveraged on publicly accumulated environmental data?
