Suchergebnisse

In this paper I review my experience as Charles Wagley's Ph.D. student and later as a faculty colleague at the University of Indiana. In addition to his deep humanism and personal warmth, Wagley also had an uncanny ability to foresee important emerging issues in social sciences, especially within Latin American and Brazilian Studies. With his flexible, personable style he found ways to direct students and colleagues towards the issues he considered important, and which later became truly major issues for these fields. For example, he helped to create the interdisciplinary field of Latin American Studies while in New York, focused on Latin American race relations while at Columbia University, and created the Amazonian Studies program at University of Florida with its focus on impacts of development and infrastructure projects. He helped create scholarship programs for such studies through the Title VI mechanism. Through all of his scholarly contributions, Wagley led by inspiring with a rare social consciousness and a deep concern for the human costs of social and economic change

"Designed to help students understand the multiple levels at which human populations respond to their surroundings, this essential text offers the most complete discussion of environmental, physiological, behavioral, and cultural adaptive strategies available"--

This book--the first to apply the combined approaches of anthropology, geography, ecology, economics, and sociology to the analysis of the Amazon River region and its imminent development--explores the impact of development on Amazonian populations and the results of rural and urban growth strategies. The authors use the methodologies of environmen

"The past decade has witnessed a rapid growth in the development of research on the human dimensions of global environmental change. Environmental Social Science offers a synthesis of this new cross disciplinary enterprise, and provides a foundation for scholars and policy makers to address the urgent needs of these globally-scaled processes. With increasing evidence of climate change, loss of biodiversity, rapid deforestation in the tropics, and an impending crisis in availability of potable water, the book argues that environmental research demands a better understanding of the complexities of current human - environment interactions. In recommending a new collaborative approach that makes environmental theories and research methods accessible across the natural and social sciences, the book outlines a mutually beneficial research agenda for all concerned."--Jacket

Infrastructure projects like roads and hydroelectric dams are meant to help achieve national economic development goals in Brazil and the Amazon. In the case of hydropower dams, they have a very specific goal: that of producing energy from water sources. Unfortunately, that objective is frequently associated with environmental and social damages that result from the construction of dams. In the Amazon these damages are more serious in terms of the impacts on biological and cultural diversity. The research for this paper is based on 5 years of study by an interdisciplinary team using survey and ethnographic methods, both qualitative and quantitative. This history is repeated frequently, and it becomes necessary to ask what types of changes would be necessary to hydropower projects to begin to have social and environmental positive results. This paper explores the causes of the problems posed by dams and suggests solutions in the process of approval, construction and operation of hydropower dams that could lead to better outcomes for the common good of society.***Mudando a maneira como construímos a infraestrutura hidrelétrica para o bem comum: lições da Amazônia brasileira***Projetos de infraestrutura como estradas e hidrelétricas são usados para o desenvolvimento econômico e nacional no Brasil e na Amazônia. As hidrelétricas, em particular, têm um foco na produção de energia de fontes hídricas. Infelizmente, frequentemente, esse objetivo está associado a danos ambientais e sociais que resultam da construção das barragens hidrelétricas. Na Amazônia tais danos são ainda mais sérios em termos dos impactos sobre a diversidade biológica e cultural. Esta pesquisa de cinco anos envolveu uma equipe interdisciplinar usando métodos de survey, etnográficos, qualitativos e quantitativos. Esta história se repete com frequência e torna-se necessário questionar quais alterações seriam necessárias para que projetos hidrelétricos possam gerar resultados mais positivos em termos ambientais e sociais. Este trabalho explora as causas dos problemas causados pelas hidrelétricas e sugere soluções de melhorias dos processos de aprovação, construção, e operação desses empreendimentos a fim de alcançar o bem comum da sociedade.Palavras-chave: Hidrelétricas. Barragens. Avaliação de impactos sociais. Avaliação de impactos ambientais. Desmatamento. Reassentamento.