I was once a lurker, then left, and now I might be a lurker again...
I received my PhD in May from Clark University's Environmental Science and
Policy Program. Jim Wertsch was one of the folks on my committee. My
dissertation research was on how interpersonal relationships are associated
with the meanings that develop in environmental policy discourse. I based my
work on a Bakhtinian framework of meaning and communication (Lotman too).
Now I am working on a variety of research projects related to public
involvement in environmental policy-making. A particular focus of mine is
how discourse is managed and evaluated, how the discourse develops over time,
and how participants learn as part of their involvement in the process--both
substance of issues and skills of communication, problem solving etc.
Also half of my work is with community and environmental activists dealing
with the many health-related issues arising from toxic and radiation
contamination at nuclear weapons production sites in the US. This involves a
lot of educational work with people without technical backgrounds (and
sometimes, with several Native American nations, very different ways of
understanding health, radiation, etc.) so I am interested in the discussions
that sometimes get going here about education, language, cultures, etc.
Seth