Abstracts of Conference Presentations

"Public Perception and Hazard Policy Construction When Experts and Activists Clash in the Media," to the 25th Hazards Research and Applications Workshop, Boulder, Colorado, July 2000.

This paper presents two case studies. One is about a technological risk controversy: the use of plutonium dioxide radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) on board the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, in light of its gravity-assist swing by Earth in August 1999. The other is about a natural hazard controversy: the Anaheim Hills landslide of January 1993, which destroyed 32 luxury homes that had been built on the site with full knowledge of its ancient and modern landslide history. In both cases, attention is paid to the use of the Internet by parties to the controversy to generate awareness and to stimulate political activism out of that awareness.

For the Cassini case study, the data consist of Internet dialogues on the topic, specifically, UseNet postings from 1 April 1995 through 31 March 1999. They illustrate the exponential impact of a very small and well-organized opposition movement, which utilized the Internet to exert pressure to abort the launch and flyby. Though Cassini went on to Saturn, the resulting political pressure on NASA has created an atmosphere of public controversy in which new missions may be more difficult to authorize if their goals and design require RTGs.

For the Anaheim Hills case study, the data derive from a content analysis of a massive web site built by one of the victims of the landslide, building a forum for other victims to relate their individual stories, an activist bulletin board for victims seeking restitution and, increasingly, for potential victims in a growing series of other landslide-susceptible sites, and a site to warn potential buyers away from hazardous areas.

The successes of the anti-Cassini activists on the one hand and the victim of the landslide on the other raise questions about the nature of risk decision-making in a democratic but unevenly informed society and about the sources of uneven access to information. It underscores the empowerment of small but well-organized groups in the realm of natural and technological hazard policy and the potential of the Internet in heightening individual empowerment in such debates. It also raises less heartening issues of potential demagoguery in cyberspace.

Dr. Rodrigue also made a poster available about the Cassini project, an abridgement of the content of the AAAS paper (below):

"Internet Recruitment and Activism in the Cassini Controversy," to the 25th Hazards Research and Applications Workshop, Boulder, Colorado, July 2000.

Dr. Rodrigue presented:

"Internet Recruitment and Activism in Constructing Technological Risk," to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC, February 2000.

Social construction of a technological risk policy entails a risk assessment dialogue between technical experts and public interest activists and between each of these and elected risk management policy-makers. These dialogues are conducted in the charged presence of media and take place in the contested terrain of public involvement and recruitment to political action.

This paper presents a case study of a recent technological risk controversy: the use of plutonium dioxide radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) on board the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, in light of its gravity-assist swing by Earth in August 1999. The data consist of Internet dialogues on the topic, specifically, UseNet postings from 1 April 1995 through 31 March 1999. They illustrate the exponential impact of a very small and well-organized opposition movement, which utilized the Internet to exert pressure to abort the launch and flyby. Though Cassini went on to Saturn, the resulting political pressure on NASA has created an atmosphere of public controversy in which new missions may be very difficult to authorize if their goals and design require RTGs.

The success of the anti-Cassini activists raises questions about the nature of technological risk decision-making in a democratic but unevenly informed society. It underscores the empowerment of small but well-organized groups in the realm of natural and technological hazard policy and the potential of the Internet in heightening individual empowerment in such debates, particularly when science itself is under critical interrogation. It also raises less heartening issues of demagoguery in cyberspace.

Additionally, Dr. Rodrigue is scheduled to present:

"Construction of Hazard Perception and Activism on the Internet," to the Association of American Geographers, New York, February-March 2001.

Social construction of hazard policy entails a risk assessment dialogue between technical experts and public interest activists and between each of these and elected risk management policy-makers. These dialogues have traditionally taken place in the frequently distorting presence of broadcast and print media, with varying effect on public perception, interest, and recruitment to political action. The advent of the Internet has fundamentally altered these discussions, with the immediacy, duration, geographical reach, and exponential expansion of communications among individuals it affords. Early results have included an impressive empowerment of individual activists vis à vis the corporate interests that dominate traditional media, as well as tremendous citizen pressure on risk management decision- makers. This is a blade that cuts both ways, however, with new opportunities for demagoguery and hijacking of the reference group trust by which most people make political decisions on issues far beyond their training. This paper illustrates these points with case studies involving both technological and natural hazards controversies played out on the Internet.

"Outreach and 'Inreach': Development of a Geography Internship Program.Outreach and "Inreach": Development of a Geography Internship Program," to the California Geographical Society, San Diego, May 2000.

California State University, Long Beach, is proud to have one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse student populations in the country. It is not uncommon for our students to be the first in their families to go to college or the first in their families to seek professional careers in the United States. As a result, faculty play an especially important role in helping students to develop and refine their educational and career goals and to make the transition to full-time professional employment. To meet this challenge the Geography Department has developed an exciting internship program to serve our 80 undergraduate majors and 40 graduate students.

As Director of the Internship Program in Applied Geography, my first challenge is to give students hope and help them develop confidence in their future. I work to prepare students for career opportunities and develop some of those opportunities through alumni/ae and other industry and government contacts. I also expose students to career possibilities through invited speakers, tours and an active web site. Part of the site showcases recent student internship experiences in their own words and photographs. In essence, I open doors, then gently push students through those doors and support them until they soon forget they needed support.

The success of the program over the last several years is evident in the numbers of students placed in internships, the quality of the learning experiences they have, and the ongoing career success of recent graduates. Over 95% of students who do an internship go on to full time, geography-related jobs after graduation.

Dr. Azary also presented:

"Making Connections: Development of an Internship Program to Ensure Undergraduate and Graduate Student Success," to the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, December 1999.

California State University, Long Beach, is proud to have one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse student populations in the country. It is not uncommon for our students to be the first in their families to go to college or the first in their families to seek professional careers in the United States. As a result, faculty play an especially important role in helping students to develop and refine their educational and career goals and to make the transition to full-time professional employment. To meet this challenge the Geography Department has developed an exciting internship program to serve our 100 undergraduate majors and 50 graduate students. As Director of the Internship Program in Applied Geography, my first challenge is to give students hope and help them develop confidence in their future. I work to prepare students for career opportunities and develop some of those opportunities through alumni/ae and other industry and government contacts. I also expose students to career possibilities through invited speakers and an active web site. Part of the site showcases recent student internship experiences in their own words and photographs. In essence, I open doors, then gently push students through those doors and support them until they soon forget they needed support. The success of the program over the last several years is evident in the numbers of students placed in internships, the quality of the learning experiences they have, and the ongoing career success of recent graduates.

In addition, Dr. Azary is scheduled to present:

"Confounding water policy: Voter representation and choice in Tucson, Arizona," to the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, Arcata, California, September 2000.

The first, long awaited deliveries of Colorado River water to Tucson, Arizona, in the early 1990s resulted in millions of dollars worth of damages to homes and generated thousands of claims and complaints. In 1995 voters decisively rejected decades of planning by local and state water agencies and approved a citizen-sponsored initiative that prohibited the city from delivering Colorado River water for five years. A challenge was defeated in 1997, but voters reversed themselves in 1999. This paper analyzes the provisions of the three propositions and the spatial distribution of public resistance to Colorado River water. Support for the prohibition is found to be strongly correlated with those areas that received initial delivery of Colorado River water, which is particularly notable since close to 40 percent of those affected were ineligible to vote. The response of voters near a groundwater Superfund site is also explored. These propositions and the spatial distribution of votes and representation in policy decisions has important ramifications for water planning in Arizona.

"Visualizing Flood Hazard with GIS," to the Association of American Geographers, Pittsburgh, April 2000.

The potential for flood risk in the local community was estimated using data from various sources and different scales. Macro-model flood zone maps produced by FEMA were related to detailed aerial-survey elevations for every residential structure in the City. The resulting parcel-level flood hazard estimates were used by individual homeowners in obtaining appropriate flood insurance. Analyzing these data at different scales and producing visual displays that were comprehensible to the general public was a challenge. This paper looks at the use of GIS to solve these modeling and visualization issues.

"Folk Maps, Cartoons, and Map Kitsch: The Role of Cartographic Curiosities," to the Association of American Geographers, Pittsburgh, April 2000.

In general, any map that is not a conventional map has at one time been labeled a cartographic curiosity, or alternative cartography; even computer cartography was once considered alternative. Curiosities are popular with collectors, and cartographic journals frequently feature cartographic oddities, but they are not treated as serious maps. Although there have been articles on political cartoon maps, postcards, embroidered maps, puzzles, postage stamps, etc., curiosities have not been studied as a group, the terms oddity, curiosity, folk cartography, or alternative cartography have not been defined, and there has been little study of the impact such maps can have. The two primary works on cartographic curiosities by Gillian Hill and R. V. Tooley are really catalogs of unusual maps and there is little agreement on what constitutes a curiosity or oddity. This paper is a preliminary attempt at sorting out the oddities and analyzing the role they play.

"Urban Social Vulnerability in Six World Megacities: Lessons and Proposals," to the Association of American Geographers, Pittsburgh, April 2000.

The author has coordinated a two year study of urban social vulnerability for the United Nations University. The cities were Los Angeles, Tokyo, Mexico City, Manila, Mumbai, and Johannesburg. In each city local research teams interviewed municipal officials and NGO workers in an attempt to learn the following: (1) how socially vulnerable groups were defined, (2) what sources of information about the defined groups was acquired and used, (3) what programs existed to meet the needs of such people in the event of a disaster, during the phase of recovery, and in efforts to mitigate or to prevent loss, (4) what was the role of community based organizations (CBOs) and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) in dealing with issues of social vulnerability.

Results showed responses very closely tied to the specific history of planning and governance in each city. On the whole, however, there is little official involvement with issues of social vulnerability. NGOs and CBOs are generally more concerned with the conditions of daily life that make some groups more vulnerable to harm, but often relations between municipal planners and such groups are remote or even strained and conflictual.

Models obtained from case studies of cooperative municipal/ CBO/ NGO collaboration should be disseminated, but progress requires increased financial and human resources for municipal sub-units of megacities and fuller governmental accountability.

"Ensenada: A Mexican Border Town?" to the American Studies Association, Montréal, October 1999.

Based on a variety of cultural, economic, social, and spatial factors, including the composition and location of landuse activities, it is widely contended that the Mexican border cities form a distinct subset of Mexican urban centers. In short, they are considered to be different than cities in the interior of the country. Although some scholars have argued that the border towns may not be as different as many have suggested, if that contention is nonetheless assumed to be even partially correct, an intriguing set of questions arise: Are border cities only those that directly front the international boundary? Or do "border cities" exist some distance south of the boundary? In the absence of any systematic research on the subject, most would likely support the notion that border cities need not abut the boundary per se. A case in point is the city of Ensenada in Baja California. Although located some 80 miles south of the border crossing at Tijuana, since at least the days of Prohibition in the United States (1918-1933), Ensenada has been universally considered a border town. In the popular media, it has been portrayed most often as a smaller, cleaner, safer, waterfront version of Tijuana, a place to go for "border town excitement" without all the crowds, hassles, and crimes associated with that city. This study examines the above questions, focusing specifically on Ensenada both historically and at the present. It draws heavily upon the results of a detailed landuse analysis of the city, which is compared to the most widely accepted model of Mexican border city urban structure. It concludes that, despite the long-standing importance of tourism to the economy and landscape of the city, Ensenada is not now and has never been a border town as such places are most commonly defined.

Mr. Tom Frazier, recent M.A. from CSULB, presented:

"Tracking the traces of division: A survey of the remnants of the Berlin Wall as a relict boundary on the urban landscape" to the California Geographical Society, San Diego, May 2000.

The Berlin Wall was a physical barrier that divided a militarily occupied capital city into east and west from 1961 to 1989. The superimposed boundary split streets, neighborhoods, a city, and a nation in half. Physical traces of the once formidable barrier between Communist East and Capitalist West are in evidence throughout central Berlin, constituting a relict boundary. A relict boundary is one that has been abandoned, but is still marked by differences in the landscape that developed during its lifetime. This type of boundary can be found in the form of physical remnants and vestiges of demarcation and fortification employed at the border, or surrounding the border area, and left behind after the border ceased to function. It is important to know that the Berlin Wall was not just one edifice but actually a series of physical barriers erected in a border security zone for the primary purpose of preventing escape from East to West. The design of this investigative study of the Berlin Wall as a relict boundary was threefold: 1.) To determine exactly where the Wall was placed and why; 2.) To describe what constituted the Wall; and 3.) To reveal which remnants of the Wall remain and what effects they have on Berlin's cityscape. The traces and remnants that were looked for were those components that comprised the morphology of the Berlin Wall. A field survey for a recent CSULB MA thesis was conducted along an approximate ten-kilometer long representative course of the Wall, through the center of Berlin, documenting whatever traces and remnants that remain on the urban landscape. Though the Berlin Wall may no longer function as an effective physical and political barrier to movement, it has left a significant and lasting physical imprint on the urban landscape of the city of Berlin.

Mr. Frazier is currently a Ph.D. student in the Geographisches Institut, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, working under Dr. Marlies Schulz, who spoke on campus in April.