Date of Award

12-31-2022

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Environmental Sciences

First Advisor

Georgia Mavrommati

Second Advisor

Robert Chen

Third Advisor

J. Cedric Woods

Abstract

Community driven priorities can help guide decision-making to better address complex local problems like climate change. Diversity in the different cultures of communities and the knowledge held by those communities are important considerations but are rarely heard. The research presented aims to assist two underserved coastal communities in eastern Massachusetts (the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe and the Falmouth Cape Verdeans) in identifying their priorities through discourse-based workshops. From the transcripts made from those discussions, an applied thematic analysis was used to better understand what cultural values drove those communities’ priorities. The coding framework adapted from the cultural services framework used in the United Kingdom National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-on allowed a deeper look into the underlaying cultural values of practices, subjective well-being, and services and goods that arise from the interactions of people and environmental spaces. Acknowledging the cultural history and the relationship with the land that a community has, will give strength to cultural value and community priorities in decision-making.

Comments

Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through resources like Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global or through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users" link above.

Download
Off-Campus UMass Boston Users

Share

COinS