Economic restructuring, environmental risks, and public engagement at a rural-urban interface (Alberta's Industrial Heartland)

Current research in critical humanist geography has helped to re-assert the importance of place in contemporary globalization. In contemporary research in human geography, the local has re-emerged as a research priority that engages problems associated with how a fast-paced, mobile, and globalizing world is transforming everyday life. This thesis contributes to this research area through a case study of a community that has experienced rapid social and cultural change resulting from economic restructuring over the past fifty years. This change has contributed to a local social dynamic that has put place 'up-for-grabs' in a way that involves political discourses surrounding a controversial industrial development plan. The thesis explores the local politics, discourse, and cultural setting of contested place-making among stakeholders interested in farming, rural living, and industrial development.; The study community is situated at an agricultural/industrial rural-urban interface near Edmonton, Alberta. A public consultation program commissioned between 1999 and 2001 by four municipal governments in the region attempted to gain community support for an eco-industrial plan called the Alberta's Industrial Heartland (AIH). The consultations were derailed when mechanisms to engage the public failed to incorporate measures to accommodate the situated and contested lifeworlds of residents who lived within and adjacent to the AIH. Residents were concerned about the potential risks associated with the AIH proposal and its implications for the viability of the area as a place to live. What is more, the public resented not being adequately consulted, even after two years of efforts by local authorities to provide open houses, workshops, and other consultations. In-depth qualitative research investigated the ensuing social conflict in order to determine the local politics of public engagement in environmental decision-making. Within these politics, the study examined risk as the language of place-making the structure of which centred on culturally-mediated place attachment and risk amplification. Finally, the thesis contributes to the body of research that defines the local cultural impacts of global economic restructuring. Taken together, the chapters in the thesis paint a picture of a politicized struggle over place-making situated in a network of power between global forces and local process. From a practical perspective, this thesis informs efforts to improve policy formation by clarifying the role and responsibilities of local governments toward improved environmental management.