IRICE   05408
INSTITUTO ROSARIO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACION
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Children's perception of Brazil´s first large-scale wind farm: a photographic data gathering strategy providing insightful approach of adults.
Autor/es:
RAFAELLA LENOIR IMPROTA; JOSÉ PINHEIRO
Lugar:
Leipzig
Reunión:
Conferencia; International Association People-Environment Studies - Conference; 2010
Institución organizadora:
International Association People-Environment Studies
Resumen:
<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:PT-BR; mso-fareast-language:PT-BR;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> The implementation of renewable sources of energy due to the growing concern about climatic change has brought about transformations to the surroundings and landscapes of certain communities. A clear example of this is the community that lives near Rio do Fogo Wind Farm (in Portuguese: Parque Eólico do Rio do Fogo - PERF). It was set up a few years ago in the northeast of Brazil. PERF was the first wind farm in the country and – as far as we could tell - there were no other studies about social-environmental impacts of national wind farms, still less involving children population. This wind farm is located on the Atlantic coast of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, near the beach village of Zumbi, whose inhabitants live with a very low income, under deficient health and education conditions. Therefore, there were contrasting realities between a high-tech enterprise and the conditions of life of local population. We wanted to approach the members of local community to get their perceptions and opinions about PERF, but were concerned about the reception we could receive. Inspired by the multi-method tradition of our research group, we decided to start our approach of those residents by the children. "They often respond more immediately to environmental conditions, freer of the overlay of symbolic, cultural, and past experiences that may obscure or distort adult reactions" (Altman & Wohlwill, 1980). In addition, children are the present day representatives of future generations, therefore with a fundamental role when sustainable life styles are considered. The participants in our study were three girls and two boys recruited at the local school, ages from nine to twelve, living nearby PERF. While having already incorporated the values of their local community, they were still young enough to express themselves more freely. Besides being capable of identifying and registering local aspects of their environment, somehow significant for the purposes of the study, they could easily handle a simple photographic camera, a highly motivational task. In accordance with the principles of the auto-photography technique, they were given one camera each and asked to take pictures of six places they liked the most and six places they liked the least, in a time frame of one week. With all colour photos developed and enlarged to postal card size, one-to-one interviews were performed, when children were asked to comment on the pictures they had taken, without knowing our research purposes were related to PERF. At the end of this stage of the study, we conducted a group interview with all the children and (again) asked questions about the photos, while everyone´s pictures were visible on panels. All five children took pictures of PERF as a place that they liked; when asked to rank the photos for preference, the wind farm was always in first or second place. When asked to choose one of the pictures to send to a (fictitious) relative who had never been in their community, two children chose scenes involving views of the wind farm. In sum, children presented a positive evaluation of PERF, as a symbol of progress and beautiful scenery. The photographs were also used in the interviews with the adults, who were inquired about possible motives children had in taking them. Information gathering from the adult population received an additional input with such procedure, which also helped to establish a friendly atmosphere to their interviews. In sum, both the children and the strategy of using photography were important elements in our evaluation of social and environmental impact of the wind farm. This research confirms the theory that the task of taking photos change in a pressure, motivated and game-like activity. Our results suggest that both could (and should?) be used more frequently in environment-behaviour investigations, particularly in the case of environmental evaluations.