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Caretakers of the Garden of Delight and Discontent: Adirondack Narrative, Conflict, and Environmental Virtue

Holmlund, Eric Richard
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1282137895

Abstract Details

2010, Ph.D., Antioch University, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies.
This dissertation concerns a widely recognized natural area, New York's Adirondack Park, that serves both as an international model for conservation and as a context for persistent conflict over natural resources, space, wealth and esthetics. It employs narrative inquiry as a method to examine the sources and the function of narratives or stories explaining the history and the present status of social groups in the Park. Narrative theorists maintain that we borrow from such socially circulating narratives to craft our own identities, and then repeat them until we believe them, almost without regard for the factual basis in history or science. The dissertation follows the progress of the author, a professor of environmental studies at a small Adirondack college, as he delves into the formation of his own Adirondack identity and values while traveling with his family from the state capital, Albany, deep into the Adirondack interior. The interdisciplinary approach includes a critical overview of environmental history as it pertains to class and conflict in the Adirondack Park, an exposition of narrative epistemology, interviews with four subjects, a praxis-oriented exploration of environmental virtue, and targeted memoir. This narrative dissertation is at once an intellectual, philosophical, personal and spatial voyage toward a set of answers, or more clearly articulated questions, concerning how one regional community struggles toward finding a satisfactory balance between nature and culture. The author identifies a set of themes that help to bound and conclude the inquiry: Landside and Lakeside, Camps and Camping and the Virtues of the Caretaker.
Mitchell Thomashow, PhD (Committee Chair)
Joy Ackerman, PhD (Committee Member)
Philip Terrie, PhD (Committee Member)
352 p.
American History; American Studies; Area Planning and Development; Environmental Science; Philosophy; Social Research
Adirondack Park; New York State; protected landscape; environmental policy; narrative inquiry; personal narrative; Adirondack history; environmental virtue; environmental ethics; social conflict; sense of place; environmental conservation; development

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Holmlund, E. R. (2010). Caretakers of the Garden of Delight and Discontent: Adirondack Narrative, Conflict, and Environmental Virtue [Doctoral dissertation, Antioch University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1282137895

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Holmlund, Eric. Caretakers of the Garden of Delight and Discontent: Adirondack Narrative, Conflict, and Environmental Virtue. 2010. Antioch University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1282137895.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Holmlund, Eric. "Caretakers of the Garden of Delight and Discontent: Adirondack Narrative, Conflict, and Environmental Virtue." Doctoral dissertation, Antioch University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1282137895

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Antioch University and OhioLINK.