Jacquelin Burgess

People, Parks and the Urban Green: A Study of Popular Meanings and Values for Open Spaces in the City

Contemporary provision of open spaces within cities rests largely on professional assumptions about its significance in the lives of residents. This paper presents results from the Greenwich Open Space Project which used qualitative research with four, in-depth discussion groups to determine the design of a questionnaire survey of households in the borough. The research shows that the most highly valued open spaces are those which enhance the positive qualities of urban life : variety of opportunities and physical settings; sociability and cultural diversity. The findings lend some support to the approach of the urban conservation movement but present a fundamental challenge to the open-space hierarchy embodied in the Greater London Development Plan. The Project identifies a great need for diversity of both natural settings and social facilities within local areas and highlights the potential of urban green space to improve the quality of life of all citizens.

Environmental Communication and the Cultural Politics of Environmental Citizenship

This paper presents a comparative analysis of how representatives from the public, private, and voluntary sectors of two cities [Nottingham (United Kingdom) and Eindhoven (The Netherlands)] responded to the challenge of communicating more effectively with citizens about issues of sustainability. The analysis is set in the context of literature about the need to widen participation in the determination of Local Agenda 21 policies, and the drive for more inclusionary forms of communication in planning and politics. Workshop members discussed the results of surveys and in-depth discussion groups with local residents which had revealed considerable scepticism and mistrust of environmental communications and environmental expertise. Three themes are explored. First, there is consensus in attributing responsibility for public alienation and resistance to environmental communications to the content and styles of media reporting. Second, there are contrasting discursive constructions of the ‘public’, which reflect different political cultures—with the Nottingham workshop supporting a strategy to share power and knowledge more widely than hitherto, whereas the Eindhoven strategy proposed greater rigour, clarity, and authority from the local state. Third, responding to evidence of public resistance to calls for more sustainable practices, workshop participants in both cities focused on what institutions themselves can and should do to progress environmental goals. Workshop participants in both countries acknowledged the urgent need for public, private, and voluntary sector organisations to match their own practices to their environmental rhetoric.

The Production and Consumption of Environmental Meanings in the Mass Media: A Research Agenda for the 1990s

In this paper, the case is made for an agenda of geographical research based on the mass media of communications. The argument is advanced that the media are an integral part of a complex cultural process through which environmental meanings are produced and consumed. Applying theoretical perspectives developed in cultural studies, evidence from a range of case studies is presented to demonstrate the ways in which environmental meanings are encoded in different forms of media texts and decoded by the different groups who comprise the audiences. It is argued that physical and human geographers could usefully collaborate in research with both producers and consumers of media texts, so as to better understand contemporary discourses about human-environment relations.

Exploring environmental values through the medium of small groups: 1. Theory and practice

Empirical qualitative research is gaining recognition within social and humanistic geography, although the ‘small group’ is not yet recognised as a valuable research technique. In this paper we review the use of once-only group interviews in social and market research, and then discuss the principles of Group-analytic psychotherapy as a way of conducting in-depth small groups. By means of a discussion of the Greenwich Open-Space Project, we explore the methodological issues involved in conducting in-depth small groups with local people, discuss the interpretive strategies which can be used to handle large amounts of linguistic data, and present the major findings from the project.

Knowledges in action: an actor network analysis of a wetland agri-environment scheme

Abstract Agri-environment schemes have been developed by the member states of the European Union over the last 10 years. Under Regulation 2078/92, the UK has supported English Nature in the implementation of a nature conservation scheme for wet grazing land in southern England. This paper explores the different understandings of nature held by farmers and conservationists who are participating in the Wildlife Enhancement Scheme, by drawing on qualitative research completed between 1993 and 1995. Through the application of actor network theory, the analysis compares the role and identity ascribed to farmers by conservationists with the identity that farmers’ construct of themselves. The former construct farmers as technicians, ignorant of the workings of nature, whereas the farmers see themselves as ‘natural conservationists’. The paper explores how nature is translated differently in the worlds of conservation science and agriculture. In the final part of the paper, discussion focuses on the management of the wetland ditches where these sets of translations come together. It reveals that the rigid, scientific prescriptions for management of the conservation value of the ditches are considerably at odds with the more flexible and sensitive practices of farmers themselves.

Selling places: Environmental images for the executive

Burgess J. A. (1982) Selling places: Environmental images for the executive, Reg. Studies 16, 1–17. Images of place are a significant factor in the investment and locational decisions made by industrial and commercial executives. Local authority advertising attempts to reinforce favourable images and challenge stereotyped, unfavourable impressions about places. This paper assesses the content of promotional material published by local authorities between 1975–9. Image making could be improved through more creative and original copywriting, better market research and increased emphasis on public relations work.

''I struggled with this money business'': respondents' perspectives on contingent valuation

Abstract In the long-running debates about the validity and legitimacy of contingent valuation (CV), very little research has engaged directly with respondents during or after the survey to explore what individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) figure meant. This paper presents the results of qualitative research with respondents to a CV survey carried out as part of the appraisal of a specific nature conservation policy in the UK. The results show that respondents’ questioned the validity of their WTP figures through discussion of the difficulties they experienced in framing a meaningful reply. Significant difficulties included problems in contextualising what the scheme was and how much it might be worth in both monetary and non-monetary terms; an inability to work out a value for one scheme in isolation from others in other parts of the UK; and feelings that values for nature were not commensurable with monetary valuation. Turning to the legitimacy of CV, participants in the research challenged claims that CV is a democratic process for ensuring that public values are incorporated in policy decisions. Recognizing that hard economic choices have to be made in order to achieve nature conservation goals, participants argued for a decision-making institution where local people could contribute to environmental policy decisions through dialogue with scientists and policy-makers. In the final part of the paper, this project is compared with three studies that have also used qualitative approaches with respondents during and/or after a CV survey. The paper concludes that more context-specific, qualitative research with respondents is needed to explore further the conclusion that CV may not be a good methodology for capturing complex, cultural values for nature and landscape.

Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions

This paper discusses the methodological development of Deliberative Mapping (DM), a participatory, multi-criteria, option appraisal process that combines a novel approach to the use of quantitative decision analysis techniques with some significant innovations in the field of participatory deliberation. DM is a symmetrical process, engaging “specialists” and “citizens” in the same appraisal process, providing for consistency of framing, mutual inter-linkage and interrogation, and substantial opportunities for face-to-face discussion. Through a detailed case study of organ transplantation options, the paper discusses the steps in DM. The analysis shows that DM is able to elicit and document consensual judgments as well as divergent views by integrating analytic and deliberative components in a transparent, auditable process that creates many opportunities for personal learning, and provides a robust decision-support tool for contested science-policy issues.

Exploring environmental values through the medium of small groups: 2. Illustrations of a group at work

In this paper we present the discussions of the Eltham group in the Greenwich Open-Space project, as a case study of the contributions that in-depth small groups can make in the study of environmental values. The major themes of the group discussions are presented, and extracts of dialogue illustrate several aspects of small-group dynamics: how the group establishes its identity, how members negotiate increasing levels of intimacy and trust, how they handle conflict among themselves, and how they deal with termination. These themes demonstrate the importance of the group matrix, the levels of manifest and latent meaning in discourse, and the role of the conductor in facilitating the group structure and processes. We conclude that in-depth small groups are a valuable research strategy for the exploration of the interpenetration of individual and collective values for environment.

Detecting environmental change: science and society—perspectives on long-term research and monitoring in the 21st century

Widespread concern over the state of the environment and the impacts of anthropogenic activities on ecosystem services and functions has highlighted the need for high-quality, long-term datasets for detecting and understanding environmental change. In July 2001, an international conference reviewed progress in the field of long-term ecosystem research and monitoring (LTERM). Examples are given which demonstrate the need for long-term environmental monitoring and research, for palaeoecological reconstructions of past environments and for applied use of historical records that inform us of past environmental conditions. LTERM approaches are needed to provide measures of baseline conditions and for informing decisions on ecosystem management and environmental policy formulation. They are also valuable in aiding the understanding of the processes of environmental change, including the integrated effects of natural and anthropogenic drivers and pressures, recovery from stress and resilience of species, populations, communities and ecosystems. The authors argue that, in order to realise the full potential of LTERM approaches, progress must be made in four key areas: (i) increase the number, variety and scope of LTERM activities to help define the operational range of ecosystems; (ii) greater integration of research, monitoring, modelling, palaeoecological reconstruction and remote sensing to create a broad-scale early warning system of environmental change; (iii) development of inter-disciplinary approaches which draw upon social and environmental science expertise to understand the factors determining the vulnerability and resilience of the nature-society system to change; and (iv) more and better use of LTERM data and information to inform the public and policymakers and to provide guidance on sustainable development.