Search

Collective memory can be used conceptually to examine African-American perceptions of wildlands and black interaction with such places. The middle-American view of wildlands frames these terrains as refuges--pure and simple, sanctified places distinct from the profanity of human modification. However, wild, primitive areas do not exist in the minds of all Americans as uncomplicated or uncontaminated places. Three labor-related institutions--forest labor, plantation agriculture, and sharecropping--and terrorism and lynching have impacted negatively on black perceptions of wildlands, producing an ambivalence toward such places among African Americans. ... acknowledging the ambiguous legacy of nature myths does at least require us to recognize that landscapes will not always be simple 'places of delight'--scenery as sedative, topography so arranged as to feast the eye. For those eyes, as we will discover, are seldom clarified of the promptings of memory. And the memories are not all of pastoral picnics.

We use national-level data to test a modified version of Stern, Dietz, & Guagnano's causal model of environmental belief and behavior. We focus mainly on ethnic variation in environmental belief, as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), and ethnic variation for four environmental behaviors: environmental reading, household recycling, environmental group joining, and participation in nature-based outdoor recreation. Blacks and foreign-born Latinos were less likely than Whites to score higher on the NEE Any behavioral differences between Whites and the respective minority groups were expected to diminish with the inclusion of the NEP as an intervening variable in the model between ethnicity and behavior. However. ethnic differences remained stable and strong even when environmental belief was added. Overall, Asian American and U.S.-born Latino environmentalism was most similar to Whites. African American concern and behavior was least similar to White environmentalism. Gender, age, and liberal political orientation were also consistent explicators for both environmental concern and behavior. Keywords: environmentalism; ethnicity; New Ecological Paradigm

Previous studies have shown that African Americans have less favorable impressions about wildlands and recreate on wildland areas less frequently than do whites. However, most of these investigations have been conducted on non-rural populations. Rural perceptions of wildlands and visitation to such areas have received relatively little attention. In this exploratory study, we propose that race operates on wildland recreation visitation through the different meanings rural blacks and whites attribute to wildlands. We examine this hypothesis with a structural model which specifies wildland meaning as an intervening factor between race and visitation. Single equation results show blacks visit wildlands less, and have less favorable definitions of wildlands, compared to whites. However, when wildland meaning is included in the structural model, racial differences become insignificant. This suggests that the meanings different racial groups attach to wildlands help explain visitation. Both sex and age are also significant predictors of both wildland meaning and visitation.

Zana Briski a photographer who traveled to India in1995 to photograph female infanticide ended up making a documentary on Calcutta's brothel, for which she along with Ross Kauffman won Oscars. A brief description of Briski's experiences in Calcutta's brothels is presented.