University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Communication ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-25-2010 Constructing, Consuming, and Complicating the Human-Nature Binary: Communication Practices in Forest Environmental Education Elizabeth Dickinson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cj_etds Recommended Citation Dickinson, Elizabeth. "Constructing, Consuming, and Complicating the Human-Nature Binary: Communication Practices in Forest Environmental Education." (2010). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cj_etds/13 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONSTRUCTING, CONSUMING, AND COMPLICATING THE HUMAN-NATURE BINARY: COMMUNICATION PRACTICES IN FOREST ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION BY ELIZABETH A. DICKINSON B.A., Communication Studies, California State University, San Bernardino, 1996 M.A., Communication Studies, New Mexico State University, 1998 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Communication The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2010 iii DEDICATION This project is dedicated to my two inspirations over the last year and a half—my young precious niece, Audrey K. Dickinson, and the beautiful forests with whom I spent so much time. May you flourish and guide us through our challenging and ever-changing human ways. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful and indebted to those who made this project a great joy. This experience was significant due to the relationships I forged, with people and nature alike. In keeping with a theme in this project, I use the “parts of a tree” as a metaphor to recognize the individuals who made my journey memorable. My Trunk: Members of the North Carolina Educational State Forest System. The trunk supports a tree and gives it shape and strength. I am thankful to the amazing people I met in the North Carolina Educational State Forest system. While I cannot name them, I am indebted to forestry personnel for their support and assistance. As true practitioners of pedagogy, they embraced me with open arms and I was humbled by their dedication to my project. Thank you in particular to one forest supervisor who granted me access, provided me with support, and shaped this project along the way. My Roots: Dr. Karen Foss, Advisor. My relationship with Dr. Foss has been one of the most important of my life. Roots give a tree not only its nutrients, but tiny root hairs offer a vehicle by which a tree absorbs food and is anchored in place. Dr. Foss guided me through a constructive project; she remained positive, corrected my mistakes, and offered invaluable guidance. Beyond this project, Dr. Foss mentored me in ways that have forever changed me, and for this, I am grateful. My Bark: Dr. Tema Milstein, Committee Member. The inner bark shuttles necessary food down a tree, while the outer bark protects it. As my primary resource in environmental communication, Dr. Milstein’s nourishment gave this project and my studies depth and nuance, and her constant advocacy provided me shelter and inspiration. I thank Dr. Milstein for coming to UNM and for her wisdom, grace, and guidance. v My Heartwood: Dr. Jan Schuetz, Committee Member. The heartwood provides inner structural support and gives a tree its strength. Throughout my studies at UNM, Dr. Schuetz guided me in a way that has theoretically grounded me in Communication Studies. I thank Jan for her direction and support over the past four years. My Cambium: Dr. Karma Chávez, Committee Member. The cambium is a layer of tissue that adds growth. I thank Dr. Chávez for theoretically positioning me within larger conversations and reminding me to visualize where I want to go. My Crown: Friends and Colleagues at UNM. Comprising the leaves and branches at the top of a tree, a crown filters the air, offers shade, provides energy, and is joyful to watch. Marianne Leonardi, Iliana Rucker, Audrey Riffenburgh, Carrie Niesen, Willow Jackson-Anderson, Yea Wen Chen, Sachi Sekimoto, Claudia Anguiano, and so many others—thank you for sheltering me with energy, happiness, community, courage, and laughter. I am grateful to the department for offering me a place to thrive, and I especially thank Dr. John Oetzel and Dr. Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik. Last, I thank Dr. Alyosha Goldstein in American Studies for offering theoretical depth to this project. The Ground: My Family. The earth provides a tree with an anchor, rooting it in an origin, time, and place. I thank my beautiful brothers, Robert, Douglas, and Andrew, for grounding me wherever I am and encouraging me. I thank my Uncle Dwight, Aunt Chris, and sister-in-law Lara for being in my life and my grandmother Isabelle for her sweetness. I thank my mother Diane for encouraging me to pursue my PhD. My Forest: Jonathan B. Hill. I save the most important for last. A forest is life, a home where everything coalesces, and a space where one feels alive, content, connected, and in place. As my sweetheart, philosophical savant, comedic companion, and vi conversational partner, Jonathan gave this journey significance and meaning beyond what words can express. Jonathan, I have always admired your contemplativeness and co- presence, both in nature and with me. Thank you for joining me on this journey. CONSTRUCTING, CONSUMING, AND COMPLICATING THE HUMAN-NATURE BINARY: COMMUNICATION PRACTICES IN FOREST ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION BY ELIZABETH A. DICKINSON ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Communication The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico April 2010 viii CONSTRUCTING, CONSUMING, AND COMPLICATING THE HUMAN-NATURE BINARY: COMMUNICATION PRACTICES IN FOREST ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION by Elizabeth A. Dickinson B.A., Communication Studies, California State University, San Bernardino, 1996 M.A., Communication Studies, New Mexico State University, 1998 Ph.D., Communication, University of New Mexico, 2010 ABSTRACT This project combines interdisciplinary conversations within the field of communication to examine environmental meaning systems and communication practices in the context of forest environmental education. Due to concerns over children’s environmental alienation, there has been a continued push toward place-based environmental education. One such venture is the North Carolina Educational State Forest system (NCESF), where educators bring K-12 students into forests to help them reconnect with nature, expand environmental knowledge, and tackle what has been recently termed “nature-deficit disorder.” When students visit the sites, rangers deliver structured lessons on ecosystems and forest management to children and chaperones— lessons that must adhere to the state’s science curriculum. I used interpretive and critical qualitative approaches to conduct a five-month study of communication practices in the NCESF system. As a participant observer, I paid attention to rangers’ daily practices and the spatial layout of the forests and trails, including a number of “talking-tree trails” throughout the sites. As an observer, I watched ix rangers teach lessons to students on one site. Additionally, I conducted in-depth interviews with forestry personnel and analyzed texts and artifacts, such as curricula, teaching materials, forestry literature, and photographs that I took. Situated within four extant bodies of literature—socially constructing nature, environmental communication, consumer and commercial appropriations of nature, and environmental education—my purpose in this study is threefold. First, I examine how rangers, teachers, forestry, and curricula conceptualize, construct, and frame nature and the role of humans in it. Next, I investigated how people, parties, and nature resist and complicate dominant framings. Last, I explored the possible intersections and implications of what is being constructed, produced, and performed about human-nature relations in the forest sites. This study is further contextualized within larger cultural and educational practices to expand environmental communication research, reexamine forest environmental education, and retheorize nature-deficit disorder. This study’s findings point to three analyses and corresponding theses that rearticulate human-nature relations. First, in the forest sites, people and parties frame nature as tightly organized and contained—as scientific, named, managed, gendered, a physical place, disciplined, competitive, different, and ocularcentric. These framings maintain a traditional nature-culture binary that promotes what I call a get close-stay away dialectic, sending children the message to get close enough to trees to advocate for them, but far enough away to be comfortable with cutting them down and using them. Second, people and parties frame nature as produced for human use, where trees exist in abundance and are central to commerce. This framing points to a production- consumption context and cycle that reproduces consumer relationships with nature and x necessitates the production of trees. Third, humans and nature alike challenge dominant framings through subtle acts of resistance and autonomy, through expressions of awe and wonder, and in adults’ stories of “when I was young.” I conceptualize these resistances as interrupted