Browsing by Subject "Participation"

This dissertation research explores participatory sea turtle conservation monitoring through a comparison of two case studies, one in North Carolina (NC), USA and the other in Baja California Sur (BCS), Mexico. Participatory approaches in conservation management can supplement state capacity as well as strengthen the involvement of citizens in environmental governance and knowledge production. Despite scholarship challenging the validity of the categories of developing and developed nations, this categorical assumptions derived from this binary world divide continue to inform conservation, and theoretical vocabularies for local roles in conservation management. In developed nations, participatory conservation management is framed through the broader administrative rationalism discourse, and is identified as volunteer conservation or citizen science. In developing nations, participatory conservation management is approached through the discourse of biodiversity and the threats human society poses to it, and is identified through community-based processes of conservation stewardship. The two case studies analyzed in this dissertation serve to interrogate the ways in which these distinct discourses influence outcomes, and consider what may be obscured or overlooked due to discursive constraints.

Conducting ethnographic research in each case study site, I participated in and observed sea turtle conservation activities and conducted in-depth interviews with relevant sea turtle conservation actors as well as collected documents pertaining to the conservation programs. Sea turtle conservation monitors in NC and BCS perform functionally similar conservation tasks, and I collected data using similar techniques in order to maximize comparability. I compare the case studies, not to generalize to a population, but instead to speak to theoretical propositions and inform existing theory on participatory conservation monitoring.

Although participatory monitoring in NC and BCS does not result in a democratization of science, there are beneficial outcomes to participants in both places. NC sea turtle monitors are enabled to take ownership of sea turtle stewardship, and BCS sea turtle monitors are enabled to promote conservation and cultural change using the authority of science. These outcomes challenge assumptions about state capacity and local engagements with science in participatory conservation, and the disparate approaches to local roles in conservation in each `world.' The overall findings suggest that a multitude of factors are involved in the production of conservation program frameworks and participant outcomes, and more deeply interrogating the taken for granted assumptions behind conservation designs and implementation can offer stronger understandings of what participatory conservation management can (and cannot) achieve.

This dissertation consists of two essays investigating participation effects in household financial decisions. In the first essay, entitled "Household Mortgage Choice and Mortgage Market Participation," I empirically study a household's choice of an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) over a fixed rate mortgage (FRM) across time. This decision has been investigated in the cross-section previously, but to date, no one has studied how a household's choice of mortgage contract type changes as they gain experience in the mortgage market. This study investigates whether mortgage market participation has a systematic effect on the choice of an ARM vs. an FRM within a household. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), I document a novel stylized fact: a household's propensity to choose an adjustable rate ARM over an FRM increases with the number of previous mortgages the household has used. Households do not choose an ARM due to budget or liquidity constraints when increasing housing consumption; nor is the observed pattern of increased propensity to choose an ARM with mortgage market participation explained by the simultaneous relaxation of budget constraints as homeowners participate in the mortgage market. Stabilization of a household's income stream and rising home prices are also ruled out as the source of increasing ARM choice propensity with greater utilization of mortgages, as is expected length of tenure. Evidence is presented supporting the hypothesis that households learn about mortgage products by participating in the market.

In the second essay, entitled "Participation Effects in Refinancing Decisions", I investigate household refinancing decisions in the context of market participation. Using optimal refinance interest rate differentials as derived in Agarwal, Driscoll and Laibson (2013), I document an important participation effect in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, whereby households with greater mortgage market participation, as measured by previous mortgages used, are more likely to refinance optimally. This result is robust to potential liquidity constraints, where the household fails to refinance due to an inability to pay any fixed costs associated with the transaction. Participation effects persist even when controlling for the potential of equity extraction as the primary motivation for refinancing. These results are consistent with an information acquisition model, whereby households gain knowledge and understanding of financial transactions by participating in financial markets.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an increasingly prevalent and popular conservation tool, yet there is still much debate over whether they should emphasize the role of expert knowledge or local participation. This debate occurs among an international network of scientists and conservation professionals as well as in relation to particular places and MPAs. This dissertation contributes to an understanding of MPAs by addressing three questions: (1) How do differently situated actors within the MPA social network define and mobilize ideas of knowledge and participation? (2) How are knowledge and participation enacted and perceived in particular MPAs? (3) How do perceptions of knowledge and participation relate to actors' views of the success of MPAs? In order to address these questions, this dissertation presents the results of two separate projects: (1) a survey of international experts at the First International Marine Protected Areas Congress; and (2) an ethnographic study of two marine protected areas and their associated communities and social networks in southern Belize. The results of the survey indicate that the international MPA community is divided in their opinions on what constitutes science and what role scientists should play in the MPA policy process. Scientists who had a positivist view of science were reluctant to engage in MPA policy making, whereas government representatives who held positivist beliefs were more likely to support scientists advocating for particular MPA policies. The results of the ethnographic study in Belize illustrate that multiple groups work to produce, interpret, and contest knowledge for MPA policy, while also engaging in scalar strategies to define what MPAs are, how they should function, and who should be involved in their management. MPA success in Belize is not dependent on either conclusive expert knowledge or positive perceptions of participation, but rather on the accommodation of multiple groups' agendas.