Flood risks are a chronic concern for many coastal inhabitants, and considerable effort may be invested to mitigate those risks. In many settings, however, projected future flood risks are sufficiently great that infrastructural mitigation strategies are limited. In such settings, how do residents and other stakeholders adapt to the prospect of rapid coastal change? This dissertation research examines the social, political, and material effects of planning for flood events and climate change for coastal urban waterways.
This research project investigates land-based communities and a network of ecological theorists to analyze the range of strategies that are utilized in building communities committed to ecological restoration and sustainability. It specifically asks what knowledge sources these communities draw upon, and how those knowledge sources are integrated, in ecological restoration efforts. The project aims to expand understandings of the range of ecological restoration strategies and knowledge resources that communities marshal in adapting to environmental change.
Regularized bureaucratic strategies are demonstrated to prevent migrants with legal status from lapsing into illegal status. This can also adversely impact communities whose livelihoods depend on migrant labor. This doctoral dissertation research asks how individuals negotiate securing documentation to support their claims in changing political contexts. It focuses directly on the continuum of documents that support claims of national identity in an attempt to move beyond binary characterizations of legal status.
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