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Issue 6.2 Abstracts
Risk Perception by the Public and by Experts: A Dilemma in Risk Management
By Lennart Sjöberg
Experts and the public frequently disagree when it comes to risk assessment, indicating a lack of trust among the general public. The reasons for such disagreement are discussed, and it is pointed out that disagreement among experts and lack of full understanding of real risks contributes to skepticism among the public. The notion that people are in general reacting in a highly emotional and non-rational, phobic, manner is rejected. The conditions for risk assessment, and common-sense cognitive dynamics, are better explanations of risk perception. If trust is to be established in a country or community where it is quite low some kind of politically regulated public influence on decision making and risk monitoring is probably needed, e.g. by means of a publicly elected and responsible ombudsman.
Keywords: risk, risk assessment, cognitive dynamics, ombudsman
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Nature and Human Intelligence
By David W. Kidner
Industrial power is grounded in epistemological and ideological
choices made during past centuries. The modern self has evolved to be consistent with these choices, so that the psychological concept of “intelligence” indicates the facility with which a relatively autonomous thinker can manipulate a world consisting mostly of ‘raw materials'. I explore the ways in which this concept legitimates and naturalises the xploitation of the natural world, and suggest that it also normalises a psychopathological personality configuration. I argue that an alternative conception of human abilities based in a recognition of and sensitivity to natural order and intelligence rather than in a conception of intelligence as a solely human property, is necessary if environmental, educational, and developmental theory and practice are to be consistent with the needs of the natural world.
Keywords: intelligence, nature, technology, personality,
psychopathology
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The Historian's Dilemma, or Jonah and the Flatworm
By Nick Winder
Policy relevant research into human ecodynamics involves the study and management of historical systems. All too often this work is predicated on the historicist fallacy that history is like a motor car which clever drivers can steer to Utopia. This paper presents an historian's view of human ecodynamics as a complex, irreversible, self-organising or synergetic system and tries to explain why historical systems are as they are and to prove that such systems cannot be predicted or driven at will. Two simple ecosystem models are presented which illustrate the strengths and potential value of the synergetic approach.
Keywords: human ecodynamics. self-organisation, synergetics, unpredictability, Jonah's paradox, spatial pattern, multi-agent system, micro-simulation, overkill hypothesis
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An Ecological Study of Demographic and Industrial
Influences on Cancer Mortality Rates in Texas
By John K. Thomas, Lawrence B. Noel, Jr. and Joseph S. Kodamanchaly
Four ordinary least squares regression models were run for age-, race-, and sex-adjusted cancer mortality rates, standardized by the direct method. Digestive cancer, genital cancer, lymphatic and hematopoietic cancer, and urinary cancer rates were based on the average number of cancer related deaths for the period 1986 to 1994 and the 1990 size of population subgroups in 254 Texas counties. The four cancer rates were highly intercorrelated indicating that particular counties had high rates for many of the four cancer groups. Black proportion of population and urban county status had statistically significant influences on high cancer mortality rates in all of models. Median family income was inversely related to cancer mortality rates in all of the models, except that of urinary cancer. Contrary to expectations, Hispanic proportion of county population, level of manufacturing employment, accumulated pounds of toxic chemical wastes, and number of insecticide-treated acres had unimportant influences on cancer death rates. Foreign-born proportion of county population was associated with only digestive cancer mortality. Future research at the individual level in high death-rate counties is needed to better identify causal factors, and to improve variable measurement and model specification.
Keywords: cancer mortality rates, agricultural pesticides, industrial factors, Texas
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Cultural Landscape: Trace Yesterday, Presence Today,
Perspective Tomorrow For “Roman Centuriation” in Rural
Venetian Territory
By Gian Umberto Caravello and Piero Michieletto
This work aims to describe certain landscape ecology concepts applied to the possibility of environmental restoration and reinstatement, starting from recent studies carried out on land that once underwent Roman centuration. We considered an area containing an old quarry, subsequently converted into a rubbish dump, and applied certain concepts of ecology scale, hierarchy and metastability that, together with traditional investigations, were able to provide a thorough description of the conditions of prior territorial development and helpful indications of future potential uses. This experience has shown that the application of centuriation could still be beneficial for the territory concerned, revaluing the advantages of early biological agriculture (archaic cultivation, etc.) and its produce as a means for restoring deteriorated situations (conversion of rubbish dumps, reinstatement of forgotten land-marks and road-ways, etc.), for renewing traditional rural tourism (traditional local cuisine, historical handicrafts, etc.), and ultimately for proposing prestigious cultural schemes (an open museum).
Keywords: cultural landscape, roman centuriation, venetian territory, restoration, rural land, waste disposal, open museum
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Landscapes Lost and Gained: On Changes in Semiotic Resources
By Kurt Viking Abrahamsson
There are many symbolic values in a landscape, symbols that vary greatly between people who live in, and those who visit that landscape. These are the semiotic resources of the landscape. They change over time, and change in the mind of a person during his/her lifetime. This paper deals with these changes: how "inner landscapes" are lost and gained over time. Landscapes are reflections of cultural identities, rather than of the natural environment. The physical environment is transformed into landscapes, and cultural groups transform it through the use of different symbols, symbols that bestow different meanings on the same physical objects. Finally, this paper discusses the loss of landscapes - by "fading out" or being "battled down."
Keywords: inner landscapes, semiotic resources, landscaping, mindscaping, landscape persistence
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The Impact of Training in Participatory Research on the Behavior of School Children: A n Experiment in the Yucatan
By Ma. Dolores Viga, Federico Dickinson, Pilar Canto and Ma. Teresa Castillo
This paper emphasizes the role of Participatory Research (PR) in the socialization and resocialization processes, in which individuals' behavior towards the environment is acquired. We studied PR in the childhood socialization process by teaching it in an elementary school in a rural community in Yucatán, México. An experimental (E) group; and a control (C) group were studied. Only the former received PR methodology instruction, though both were tested before and after the PR course to evaluate the children's concepts of PR, and to identify and measure behavioral changes. The results show that the E group increased in its ability to identify PR characteristics and steps after the PR course. It also exhibited an improvement in skills, and its frequency, manner, and speed of participation were significantly higher than in the C group. Results suggest that E group children effectively modified their school behavior.
Keywords: life-long education, socialization, resocialization, rural, México
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Environmental Policy and Rural Industrial Development in China
By Haiqing Xu
China's environmental policy emphasizes the use of economic instruments. By levying a fee for discharges, the government hopes to internalize environmental costs associated with production and consumption. This policy has been working relatively well in the urban areas, but faces a grave challenge in the rural areas where there has been a development of rural industries on a massive scale since the late 1970s. Polluting industries scattered in villages pose a major threat to the rural environment. The dispersedness of rural industries and the insufficiency of environmental monitoring have become major obstacles for the implementation of environmental legislation. Based on a field study in Qinshan town in eastern China's Zhejiang province, this study discusses limitations in the implementation of China's environmental laws in combating industrial pollution in the rural areas.
Keywords: rural industrial pollution, policy, implementation
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A Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Support for Social Movements: The Case of Environmentalism
By Paul C. Stern, Thomas Dietz, Troy Abel, Gregory A. Guagnano and Linda Kalof
We present a theory of the basis of support for a social movement. Three types of support (citizenship actions, policy support and acceptance, and personal-sphere behaviors that accord with movement principles) are empirically distinct from each other and from committed activism. Drawing on theoretical work on values and norm-activation processes, we propose a value-belief-norm (VBN) theory of movement support. Individuals who accept a movement's basic values, believe that valued objects are threatened, and believe that their actions can help restore those values experience an obligation (personal norm) for pro-movement action that creates a predisposition to provide support; the particular type of support that results is dependent on the individual's capabilities and constraints. Data from a national survey of 420 respondents suggest that the VBN theory, when compared with other prevalent theories, offers the best available account of support for the environmental movement.
Keywords: values, beliefs, norms, environmentalism, social movements
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