Red, white & blue: Environmental distress among water stakeholders in a U.S. farming community

This paper explores environmental distress (e.g., feeling blue) in a politically conservative (“red”) and predominantly white farming community in the southwestern United States. In such communities across the United States, expressed concern over environmental change}including climate change}tends to be lower. This is understood to have a palliative effect that reduces feelings of ecoanxiety. Using an emotional geographies framework, our study identifies the forms of everyday emotional expressions related to water and environmental change in the context of a vulnerable rural agricultural community in central Arizona. Drawing on long-term participant-observation and stakeholder research, we use data from individual (n 5 48) and group (n 5 8) interviews with water stakeholders to explore reports of sadness and fear over environmental change using an emotion-focused text analysis. We find that this distress is related to social and material changes related to environmental change rather than to environmental change itself. We discuss implications for research on emotional geographies for understanding reactions to environmental change and uncertainty.

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Work Title Red, white & blue: Environmental distress among water stakeholders in a U.S. farming community
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Open Access
Creators
  1. Margaret V du Bray
  2. Barbara Quimby
  3. Julia C Bausch
  4. Amber Wutich
  5. Sarah Porter
  6. W Eaton
  7. Kathryn J Brasier
  8. Alexandra Brewis
  9. Williams
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Weather, Climate and Society
Publication Date April 1, 2022
Deposited July 21, 2022

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Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added du_Bray_et_al._2022_WCAS.pdf
  • Added Creator Margaret V du Bray
  • Added Creator Barbara Quimby
  • Added Creator Julia C Bausch
  • Added Creator Amber Wutich
  • Added Creator Sarah Porter
  • Added Creator W Eaton
  • Added Creator Kathryn J Brasier
  • Added Creator Alexandra Brewis
  • Added Creator Williams
  • Published