The Country and the Grassroots:
Rural action for local control of energy policy and development
This paper was published in October 2008 in the journal Theory In Action, from the Transformative Studies Institute. It's focus is a grassroots movement that emerged in a rural area of Central New York to oppose a proposal made by New york Regional Interconnect, a Canadian owned company, for a 400,000 volt HVDC power line that would extend through a nearly two-hundred mile stretch from Utica, NY to Rock Tavern, NY. The opposition claims damage would occur to property values, environment, electricity rates, health, history and would take us down a slippery slope by allowing this large, private corporation the right of eminent domain in building the infrastructure. The company claims the line is necessary to reduce congestion in the power grid. The issue is viewed through the lens of uneven development (Gottdiener 2006) and the "space of flows" described by Castells (1996). This work is currently being followed up with ethnographic research, particularly in relationship to the role of the internet in the social activism of STOP NYRI, Inc.
Here's an essay presented at the 2006 Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) conference (Vancouver BC, November 4, 2006). It's a follow-up on my dissertation work regarding internet community, focusing on the intersection of computerization, science and religion. Thus the paper is titled (using a term borrowed from Erik Davis) Eschatechnology: Computer Science, Religion, and Y2k.
My doctoral dissertation was about community and social life in cyberspace. The case study I investigated involves an online group that formed in 1996 to discuss the possible effects of the Y2K computer problem. It is entitled Communitarianism on the Internet: An Ethnographic Analysis of the Usenet Newsgroup tpy2k, 1996-2004.Here
is a critique of the impenetrable "growth ethic" of late capitalism,
as it is exhibited in the growth and change of the Vermont-based ice-cream
company Ben & Jerry's. It is entitled Can
Capitalism Be Caring? A case study of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., and this work became the basis for my Master of Arts thesis, as well as
a contribution to the Encyclopedia of Leadership (SAGE Reference
Series, 2004).
- Note: An epilogue to this work reveals the final fate of Ben & Jerry's in April 2000: bought out by Unilever, an $8 billion company (and part of a $50 billion company) that also owns Klondike, Good Humor, and Breyer's ice creams. "It's tie-dye vs. capitalism and capitalism won," says Jeffrey Kanter, a senior food analyst at Prudential Securities.
Here
are two more samples of my work, found in the areas of social stratification
and technology/work respectively, entitled:
(These are also published in the The Red Feather Institute's Electronic Journal, Spring 98 and Summer 98, respectively.)
Here's
a topic paper entitled Identity and
the Internet. It explores the possible combination of
a symbolic interactionist perspective on chat groups and bulletin boards
and a social network style analysis of "virtual communities".
This paper has been used by online study groups and in college classrooms
nationwide. It also is the winner of the 2002 Carl J. Couch
Internet Research Award, presented at the Association
of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 3rd annual conference, Maastricht,
The Netherlands. It is also a frequently cited paper online. Another essay, entitled Are We At A Fork In The Information Superhighway?, explores the online issues
of community lost and found, cooperation and competition, democracy and facism, and asks of our attempts
to guide the emergent technology of the Internet: the question "Is Resistance Futile?"