March 1999 IN THIS ISSUE: History Rural Institute Chemistry Sociology Geology |
Person to Person If you want to know what people are thinking, you have to ask them. That’s the philosophy behind the research and teaching of Rebecca Templin Richards, a UM assistant professor of sociology. Richards’ classes on community analysis and rural sociology have sent students door to door to find out how people in Montana communities cope with the various impacts of growth and development, shifting economies or new government policies. Through hand-delivered surveys and personal interviews — plus analyses of secondary sources of information — their work provides local officials and others hard-to-get information to help evaluate existing conditions or base decisions about proposed projects. Richards sees such studies as a way to put University expertise at the disposal of towns and counties and give students applied research skills in the process. “The idea is to get out and listen to community issues like sociologists should do and give students needed field experience,” Richards says. “Our work ends up helping communities because small towns and rural counties don’t always have the staff or financial resources to do surveys themselves.” Local opinions Last year, for example, she and geography graduate student Brad Davis conducted a social impact assessment of the proposed McDonald gold mine on the communities of the Blackfoot River watershed. Their study was funded in part by Blackfoot Legacy, a citizens’ group concerned with quality of life in the Blackfoot Valley. The survey findings will have far-reaching uses for planning purposes in the principal town of Lincoln and outlying communities of Ovando, Helmville, Marysville and Canyon Creek. And last spring Richards and five graduate students worked with residents and community leaders in Eureka, Libby and Troy to produce a Lincoln County Community Report that details some of the natural resource issues and development questions people in communities throughout western Montana are trying to address. Richards’ connection with Lincoln and adjacent counties began several years ago. Supported by a U. S. Department of Agriculture McIntire-Stennis grant through the School of Forestry, she first documented the wild huckleberry harvesting industry there through historical research, a product processor survey conducted with UM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, and personal interviews with local pickers, buyers and U.S. Forest Service personnel. The following year, she conducted an extensive survey on the importance of wild-resource use — including fish and game, berries, mushrooms, timber products, medicinal plants and seeds — in the local economies of Troy, Libby, Thompson Falls, Heron, Noxon and Trout Creek. Richards says that sociologists should spend time in the communities they study if the study is to be more than an ivory tower exercise. “The issues may change but the ties must remain,” she says. Dialogue in progress Students researched secondary sources of information and conducted field interviews with residents on such topics as the Christmas tree industry, Internet access and infrastructure, land-use planning, and social problems such as teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and juvenile crime. They reported their findings along with Richards’ assessments of wild-resource use to the county commissioners. The report, says Eureka County Commissioner Marianne Roose, “quantified and verified our local observations over the years ... with data gathered from personal contact with local residents. We hope to use this information to help ... in other planning processes.” Stephen Peel, a doctoral candidate in forestry with an emphasis on wilderness education, was interested in rural communities’ self-image and how this image is transmitted to the world via the Internet. He found his study of the Kootenet project -- Lincoln county’s model Internet access project -- to be a rewarding and enlightening experience. “Many of my assumptions about why the project has been so successful were wrong,” he says. “Human resources, not technology, were the driving forces.” In Peel’s opinion such hands-on experience in building community connections is essential, especially in his chosen field where wilderness managers are bumping up against the social impacts of wilderness management and natural resource use. “There’s a movement now to involve the public more in management decisions,” he says. “Primarily this means people living in the communities surrounding wilderness areas,” as in Lincoln County. Statewide links Statewide, she sees large transformations looming on the horizon for communities dealing with power deregulation, extensive highway construction projects and telecommunications innovations. “These things are really going to drive rural transformation in the coming decades,” she says, “and we will be looking at ways to link up with communities to help them confront these changes.” In addition, Richards would like to provide community analysis services to state agencies in charge of evaluating or implementing programs that directly affect communities. As the Montana Department of Transportation receives more federal funding, for example, reporting requirements regarding the impact of new construction on towns, counties, even wildlife will increase, she says. Impact assessments could similarly help with projects planned by the departments of health, education or environmental quality. Richards does not engage in projects for purely academic purposes. Her primary concern is to be of practical help to communities on specific issues and to give students a taste of real-world problems and solutions. After all, she says, the way to really get to know a community is person by person. -- Caroline Lupfer Kurtz |
