Environmental Studies Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Environmental Studies Theses and Dissertations by Author "Carey, Mark"

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    Futuremaking in a Disaster Zone: Everyday Climate Change Adaptation amongst Quechua Women in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca
    (University of Oregon, 2024-01-10) Moulton, Holly; Carey, Mark
    Indigenous women in Peru are often labeled “triply vulnerable” to climate change due to race, gender, and economic marginalization. Despite Peru’s focus on gender, Indigeneity, and intersectionality in national adaptation planning, this blanket label of women’s vulnerability persists in local ‘disaster zones’ like the Andes, where melting glaciers create flooding and water scarcity hazards. This narrative of vulnerability erases Indigenous women’s lived experiences and adaptions, positioning them as a “harmed and damaged” group bracing for climate disaster. As a result, most adaptation studies and policies in glaciated regions focus first on climate change and second on daily life, and only rarely on the intersections of gender, race, and class that shape adaptation futures. This dissertation draws on interviews, document analysis, archival research, and participant observation to understand how Indigenous women are adapting to climate change in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, and how their diverse experiences are reflected by Indigenous women’s organizations and the Peruvian state in national level adaptation planning. I draw on a case study in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range—as well as an analysis of gender and Indigeneity in national adaptation planning—to show how Indigenous women’s adaptation experiences and demands play out across scales. I conducted fieldwork over the course of five cumulative months between 2017-2019, and I collaborated with a local researcher in the Cordillera Blanca to conduct in-depth interviews between 2020-2022. The dissertation includes three findings: 1) Quechua women in the Cordillera Blanca engage in futuremaking, a framework that centers a fuller understanding of the everyday needs and desires of women and the communities they support, as opposed to the singular focus on interventions to reduce flood risk; 2) Indigenous women leaders in Peru draw on their territorial claims and resistance to extractive activities to re-make adaptation planning into a space that centers Indigenous sovereignty, and; 3) Quechua women’s labor in home gardens underpins community adaptations, upending regional templates of adaptation as infrastructure and hazard reduction. Ultimately, this research shows how women's futuremaking practices, adaptation labor, and resistance to territorial dispossession identify different risks and adaptation futures compared to most hazard-focused researchers and policymakers.
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    Vulnerability in the Avalanche Capital: The Human Dimensions of Avalanche and Landslide Hazard in Juneau, Alaska
    (University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Provant, Zachary; Carey, Mark
    In the United States, climate disasters kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars each year. In 2023, the United States experienced 28 environmental disasters that cost more than one billion dollars each—the most ever in a single year—highlighting the accelerating convergence of climate change and hazard zone development. The cryosphere faces some of the most amplified climatic changes, yet snow hazards continue to receive little attention from social scientists. This dissertation therefore examines snow hazards from avalanches and landslides in downtown Juneau, Alaska, one of the most exposed cities in the country. Using mixed qualitative methods—including interviews, participant observation, document and media analysis, and geospatial analysis—this dissertation draws on Juneau as a case study to advance the existing research on vulnerability in hazard zones. To contribute to vulnerability and unnatural disasters literature, chapters two through four examine the actors, sites, and moments that produce vulnerability and offer three key findings. Chapter 2, “Hazard Zone Conflicts in the Avalanche Capital,” argues that political, economic, and legal conflicts create windows of opportunity for powerful actors to influence the trajectory of hazard management. Chapter 3, “Housing Justice in a Hazard Zone,” argues that not only inequitable city planning and development initiatives create unnatural disasters, but also the process of hazard mitigation itself. Hazard mitigation strategies, such as the 2018-2023 hazard zone mapping project, disproportionately distribute new risks throughout the community. Chapter 4, “Shifting Climate Hazards and the Inertia of Disasters,” argues that the momentum of powerful societal forces, such as longstanding avalanche research programs and public unfamiliarity with landslides, obstructs Juneau’s ability to adapt to climate change and the increasing landslide hazard. While the details in each chapter are contextual and place-based, the broader findings offered in this dissertation are relevant for hazard zones around the world. This dissertation recommends: 1) scientists proactively integrate research on local social dynamics into their hazard and risk studies; and 2) decision-makers prioritize greater equity in the hazard mitigation and climate adaptation process. This dissertation includes previously published coauthored material.