Understanding Sense of Place: Community, Culture, and Environmental Protection Guide, Study notes of Religion

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Community Culture

and the Environment

A Guide to Understanding

a Sense of Place

ii Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This Guide was prepared by EPA’s former Office of Policy and the Office of Water with support from EPA contracts 68-W5-0054 and 8W-2690-NASA, and numerous social scientists and environmental professionals.

For additional copies of this Guide , call the National Center for Environmental Publications and Information at (513) 489-8190, (800) 490-9198, or by mail to NCEPI, U.S. EPA Publication Clearinghouse, P.O. Box 42419, Cincinnati, OH 45242, or by e-mail to ncepiwo@one.net.

If you want to cite the Guide , please refer to it as Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place , 2002, U.S. EPA (EPA 842-B-01-003), Office of Water, Washington, DC. Permission to copy all or part of it is not required.

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place iii

PROLOGUE

An Allegory or a Fairy Tale?

O

nce upon a time a proud people lived on the top of a mountain. From that summit, it seemed, they could see everything everywhere. Daily clouds obscured the distant horizon, but occasionally they would glimpse a huge mountain far in the distance. These momentary revelations notwithstanding, they were content in believing that the whole world was what they could see on their own mountain. Because of this they did not realize that their mountain was in reality a foothill, one of many that circled the huge mountain in the distance. Nor did they know that other people on other foothills shared the same belief that what they saw from their own summit was the whole world, everything everywhere, even though it was but one of many foothills.

One day a terrible cataclysm struck the land. A violent tremor shook the foothills until they began to crumble. All the proud people had to descend from their particular mountain to seek refuge in the lowlands at the base of the huge mountain. There they discovered that other people from other foothills had also descended to the lowlands to escape the wrath of nature. Now suddenly the land became quiet, the clouds lifted, and all the people could see for the first time the huge mountain in all of its towering glory whereas before they had known it only in part through a fleeting glimpse.

But nature was not finished with these people. A great flood came thundering into the valley, and all the people scrambled onto the higher land on the side of the huge mountain to escape the deluge. Day after day the flood waters rose. All of the people realized that they would need to ascend the

mountain together to save themselves. But as they began to climb, great disputes broke out between the different people, for each had their own idea about how best to climb the mountain. After all, each of the people had long believed that they had seen everything everywhere and therefore they knew everything everywhere. It was difficult for them to admit they had seen only a portion of the huge mountain and only from the angle of vision of their particular foothill.

As the flood waters continued to rise, the clamorous disputes yielded to the urgencies of survival. Despite their different points of view, they had one thing in common: they had to climb the hill to survive. As they debated their dilemma, they came to a new revelation. Each of the different people knew a different part of the huge mountain — one knew where the rockslides were, one knew where water was to be found, another knew the passage through difficult terrain. Now they came to a new vision of everything everywhere, a new vision of truth. They realized that they had been looking differently at the same mountain, and, once they exchanged views with the common purpose of climbing to the mountaintop of truth, they developed a more complete understanding of the mountain than any of them had developed separately. They formed a community of climbers and began the difficult ascent. They are still climbing and we do not know the end of the story.

Wong, F.F. 1991. Diversity and community: right objectives and wrong arguments. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, July/August. Heldref Publications, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission.

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place v

vi Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place

Contents

Community 3: Community and Pollution Prevention Community 5: Social Assessments of Well-being in

Contents

• CHAPTER Prologue. v
• Introduction
• What Is the Community Culture and the Environment Guide?
• How Will the Guide Help?
• What Will You Find in the Guide?
• CHAPTER
• What Are Community and Culture?
• Community
• Community Culture
• CHAPTER
• How to Use Results from the Guide
• Community Definition
• Audience Targeting
• Communication
• Coalition/Consensus Building: Partnerships.
• Environmental Education
• Public Participation
• Community Ser vice Projects/Volunteers
• Resource Identification
• Strategies for Sustainable Economic Development
• Goal Setting and Visioning
• Comprehensive Planning
• Information Gaps
• Indicators
• Conclusion
• Bibliographic Resources
• CHAPTER
• The Tool Kit
• Key Steps in Conducting Your Assessment Project
• STEP 1. Conduct Pre-project Planning
• Assessing Your Readiness to Begin an Assessment
• Forming a Team
• Searching for Similar Studies
• Financial Resources and Budget
• Keys for Maintaining Momentum
• Ethics of Assessment
• Human Subjects Research
• Request Paperwork Reduction Act/Information Collection
• Bibliographic Resources
• Contact List W-1 WORKSHEET—Potential Collaborator
• W-2 WORKSHEET—Summar y of Similar Studies
• STEP 2. Define Goals and Community
• Defining Your Goals
• Defining Your Community
• W-3 WORKSHEET—Defining Goals
• W-4 WORKSHEET—Defining Community
• STEP 3. Identify Community Characteristics
• How to Use This Step
• Over view of Community Characteristics
• Assessment Methods W-5 WORKSHEET—Community Characteristics and
• Community Boundaries
• Community Capacity and Activism
• Community Interaction and Information Flow
• Demographic Information
• Economic Conditions and Employment
• Education
• Environmental Awareness and Values
• Governance
• Infrastructure and Public Ser vices
• Local Identity
• Local Leisure and Recreation
• Natural Resources and Landscapes
• Property Ownership, Management, and Planning
• Public Safety and Health
• Religious and Spiritual Practices
• STEP 4. Identify Assessment Methods
• Using This Step
• Over view of Assessment Methods
• Background Research (includes Internet)
• Census Data Research
• Content Analysis
• W-6 WORKSHEET—Content Analysis Recording Sheet
• Environmental Values Typology
• Focus Groups
• Inter viewing
• Maps and Geographic Research
• Meetings
• Obser vation
• Regional Economic Data Research
• Social Mapping
• Sur veys and Polls
• Visual Methods
• STEP 5. Analyze Results
• General Comments on Data Analysis
• Storing Information
• Questions Revisiting Goals, Community Characteristics, and
• Organizing Data by Method
• Analyzing Data by Type
• Summarizing and Presenting Results
• Bibliographic Resources
• Community Case Studies APPENDIX A
• Community 1: Adams County, Ohio
• Community 2: Nebraska’s Central Platte River
• Business Perspectives in Nogales, Arizona — Household and
• Forestr y in North Carolina Community 4: The “Chip Mill” Issue and Sustainable
• Region Forest-dependent Communities of the Sierra Nevada
• Community Forum Community 6: Forces of a River — The Kenai River
• Community 7: Protecting Louisiana Wetlands

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place xi

Contents

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place 1

C

ulture is like a tree. If the green branches — a people’s language, legends, customs — are carelessly chopped off, then the roots that bind people to their place on earth and to each other also begin to wither. The wind and rain and the elements carry the topsoil away; the land becomes desert.

— Mariano Lopez Tzotzil Indian Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico (Western, 1994)

For more details, see Community-based Environmental Protection: A Resource Book for Protecting Ecosystems and Communities (EPA 230-B-96-003, September 1997), as well as Watershed Approach Framework (EPA 840-S-96-001), Top 10 Watershed Lessons Learned (EPA 840-F-97-001), and Clean Water Action Plan: Restoring and Protecting America’s Water (ISBN 0-16-049536-9). Also see http://www.epa.gov/ecocommunity/links.htm and http://www.epa.gov/owow/org.html.

What Is the Community Culture and the

Environment Guide****?

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place addresses the social and cultural aspects of community-based environmental protection. The Guide offers a process and set of tools for defining and understanding the human dimension of an environmental issue. It gives leaders in government agencies and in nongovernmental organizations and tribes (such as directors of watershed groups, public health officials, outreach coordinators, environmental educators, and environmental justice workers) technical tools for more effectively working with the public on environmental protection efforts. The Guide is based on the elements of social science theory and methodology (e.g., anthropology, cultural geography, political science, and sociology) that are most relevant to defining and understanding community life as it relates to environmental issues. (The full spectrum of social science theory and methods is well beyond the scope of the Guide .)

Þ A Tool to Develop Effective Community-based

Environmental Protection Strategies

The Guide can help you work more closely and effectively with community members to develop environmental protection goals, educational and outreach tools, and indicators to measure progress. It also can help you engage community members in planning for, making decisions about, and participating in environmentally sustainable practices ( Figure 1-2 ).

Þ An Approach to Understanding the Meaning of

“Sense of Community” and “Sense of Place”

Community-based environmental protection recognizes that values held both individually and as a group contribute to the

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place 3

Figure 1-2—What Is Sustainable

Development?

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Commission Report).

quality of community life. Expression of values through social and cultural practices can create a “sense of community.” Many of these values relate directly to the “place” in which people live, thus creating a strong “sense of place.” Use of the Guide can lead to a clearer understanding of how such feelings can translate into environmental solutions and actions.

Þ A Tool for Defining Community

Community means many things to many people. Defining it is an early — and essential — part of any community-based project. The Guide discusses the concept of “community” and includes a worksheet and tools to help you define community in a way that best fits your needs. Defining community is an iterative process; you might repeatedly refine your definition as you use the Guide.

Þ A Tool for Identifying and Understanding

Community Attitudes, Values, and Behaviors

The Guide attempts to understand a local community by looking at issues that are “below the surface” to understand what people care about and why, and what motivates people to form partnerships to take action. It takes a systematic approach to answering key questions about a community’s values, attitudes, and beliefs; how they are expressed in daily life; and how they relate to environmental issues.

How Will the Guide Help?

By working with the Guide , or conducting what will be referred to as a community cultural assessment or simply assessment , you will

þ Evaluate your starting point, or readiness, for conducting an assessment project.

þ Set goals as a starting point of the assessment process.

þ Establish a project team and develop a work plan to guide your assessment project.

þ Define the community you want to assess.

þ Choose the community characteristics and questions you want to investigate.

þ Select appropriate methods and tools for your assessment project.

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

4 Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place

þ CHAPTER 3. How to Use Assessment Results. This chapter discusses how assessment information can contribute to and support a variety of environmental protection strategies at the community level.

þ CHAPTER 4. The Tool Kit. n STEP 1: Conduct Pre-project Planning helps you assess your readiness to begin an assessment project and leads you through such necessary steps as forming a team, defining your goals, establishing your budget and evaluating your financial resources, and understanding the ethics of assessment. n STEP 2: Define Goals and Community includes information and worksheets to help you set your goals and understand the community with which you plan to work. n STEP 3: Identify Community Characteristics outlines 15 community characteristics and related questions to consider using in your assessment project ( Figure 1-3 ). This section can be used as a checklist for determining your assessment goals and questions — you can pick and choose from it and supplement, as needed, with your own questions. n STEP 4: Identify Assessment Methods describes in step-by-step detail how to use 13 different tools to answer questions about your community and to develop a community cultural assessment ( Figure 1-4 ). Bibliographic resources are included. n STEP 5: Analyze Results presents guidance on how to store, organize, and analyze the raw information the assessment methods generate. It also suggests ways to summarize, present, and describe your findings in an understandable and convincing manner.

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

6 Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place

Step 1: Conduct Pre-project Planning o Step 2: Define Goals and Community o Step 3: Identify Community Characteristics o Step 4: Identify Assessment Methods o Step 5: Analyze Results o Step 6: Select and Implement Best Strategies

Figure 1-4—Assessment Methods

· Background Research · Census Data Research · Content Analysis · Environmental Values Typology · Focus Groups · Interviewing · Maps and Geographic Research · Meetings · Observation · Regional Economic Data Research · Social Mapping

ú Asset

ú Cognitive

ú Concept

ú Social Network

· Surveys and Polls · Visual Methods

Figure 1-3—Community

Characteristics

· Community Boundaries · Community Capacity and Activism · Community Interaction and Information Flow · Demographic Information · Economic Conditions and Employment · Education · Environmental Awareness and Values · Governance · Infrastructure and Public Services · Local Identity · Local Leisure and Recreation · Natural Resources and Landscapes · Property Ownership, Management, and Planning · Public Safety and Health

n STEP 6: Select and Implement Best Strategies is discussed in Chapter 3 and in Appendix A, Community Case Studies.

þ Appendices.

n APPENDIX A: Community Case Studies. n APPENDIX B: Conceptual Foundation for Assessment Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Data and Triangulation (including sampling, validity, and questionnaire design). n APPENDIX C: Matrix of Assessment Methods. n APPENDIX D: Bibliography.

þ Definition Boxes, Figures, and Tables illustrate key points and explain important terms.

þ Bibliographic Resources suggest resources for further reading.

Please keep in mind that the overall approach and

specific information presented are suggestions only.

The Guide is designed to be a flexible tool for you

to use and to modify to meet your own needs.

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

Community Culture and the Environment: A Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place 7