The overall main goal of this research is to assist with the planning and creation of an ethnobotanical addition at the Heronswood Garden, a botanical garden located in northwest Washington state recently purchased by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. Methods included a three month long ethnographic study of Heronswood Garden as an official intern, and conducting a needs assessment that primarily employed participant observation and semi-structured open-ended interviews with all garden employees. Information revealed through the research includes causal issues behind a lack of community participation at the garden, elaboration on the solutions to various issues facilitated by negotiating and combining the views and opinions of the garden’s employees, and author reflections on the needs assessment report and the project as a whole. This research connects itself with and utilizes the methodologies and theories from applied anthropology, environmental anthropology, and environmental science to provide contemporary perspective into the subject of preserving or preventing the loss of biodiversity, language diversity, and sociocultural diversity.

Research with local farmers and local food consumers in the North Texas area which captures a contemporary understanding of the challenges and successes present in North Texas local farm-and-food networks. Through ethnographic research methods, including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, the network of producers and consumers around several farmers' markets were evaluated to understand where the strengths of local food lie, and where networks need development to promote a more stable local food environment. Texas is newer to the trend of farmers' market development, with the local food system developed to foster community, educate, and promote the advantages of locally sourced goods. This research led to the academic discovery of climate adaptive ecological knowledge and farm commodification strategies; which are tools that farmers may use to build greater defense against threats to a farm's livelihood.

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, an intentional community of roughly 70 members in Northeastern Missouri, is working to create societal change through radical sustainable living practices and creation of a culture of eco-friendly and feminist norms. Members agree to abide by a set of ecological covenants and sustainability guidelines, committing to practices such as using only sustainably generated electricity, and no use or storage of personally owned vehicles on community property. Situated within the context of a sustainability study, this thesis explores how Dancing Rabbit is creating a more socially and ecologically just culture and how this lifestyle affects happiness and well-being.

In this thesis, I explore strategies used by the local timber industry to influence forest policy on the Black Hills National Forest. These strategies include leveraging political pressure, proposing alternative interpretations of existing laws, and first requesting and then rejecting scientific data. Discursive strategies used by the timber industry to influence US Forest Service policy are compared and contrasted with those used by the environmental movement. The paper explores when and why stakeholders use different discursive strategies to influence forest policy.

This research is focused on a group of vegan and vegan-curious individuals who are creating, building and maintaining a vegan community of practice in Houston, Texas. Through ethnographic methods, including participant observation, in-depth semi-structured interviews, surveys, quantitative analysis, and use of geographic information systems (GIS), this thesis considers motivations, group hierarchies, core and peripheral membership, practices, beliefs and construction of identity within the vegan community of practice. Further, concepts from the anthropology of religion are utilized in discourse analysis around conversion to ethical veganism, preaching, and religious-ethical beliefs around enlightenment and the principle of ahimsa. Utilizing subcultural studies and social movement theory, this thesis also shows how the vegan community of practice fits into vegan subcultures and the greater vegan lifestyle movement. Finally, as an applied project, deliverables to the client Vegan Society of PEACE includes both personal and structural barriers to veganism which are understood with respect to a race-conscious approach to veganism, and with special consideration given to the capitalist commodification of animals. Suggestions are given and strategies for growth of the community are highlighted at the end of this paper.