BIOCULTURAL PLACES FOR TRANSFORMATIVE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECTED AREAS: CRITICAL PLACE INQUIRY AND YOUTH PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH IN COLOMBIA

Abstract

This dissertation affirms the importance of explicitly and politically attending to place in research. Taking up such a critical inquiry of place, I facilitate a participatory and action-oriented approach through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and methods of photovoice and participatory mapping. This approach engaged six youth living in Isla Grande, Colombia, to co-investigate the significance of biocultural place relationships to their lives. This focus supports their community’s efforts toward sustainable development and self-determination of ancestral territories alongside a National Park and Marine Protected Area. Emphasizing place in research conceptualization, orientation, approach, design, and practice, we achieved the following objectives: (1) to explore youths’ relationships with place through critical place inquiry by supporting their role as co-researchers using a YPAR approach; (2) to encourage youth-led inquiry with place related to their experiences and understandings of well-being and sustainability in ancestral territory places; and (3) to assess and mobilize youth perspectives on place significance, based on biocultural interdependence. Through analysis, this dissertation offers practical insight on the relevance of a biocultural framework to discern interdependent and evolving place relationships. Resultant findings illustrate youths’ biocultural relations using a UNESCO-sCBD framework in terms of how language; material culture; knowledge, technology, innovations, and improvisations; social and economic relations; beliefs; and values are interconnected with biodiversity. These relations are discussed in connection with youths’ understandings of well-being and sustainability. Local implications of this research include applying a biocultural framework to support formal education and livelihood diversification, and encouraging youth participation in community efforts toward sustainable development. Broad implications for protected areas include how a biocultural framework can inform governance decisions based on the knowledge, values, and interests of local communities to protect both nature and culture. Implications for future research include: going "beyond the research" to capture the daily lives of youth through mobile approaches; building on participatory approaches to facilitate intergenerational learning and exchange; expanding on economic relations to support biocultural heritage innovations; and supporting collaborative processes among diverse place actors through the development of biocultural indicators