Guåhan and Being “Green”: Public Relations at the Intersection of Indigeneity and Environmental Justice

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/zc77sr483

Abstract

As the global environmental crisis continues to worsen, it becomes increasingly important to examine what elements are included or excluded from articulations of these issues, as well as articulations of possible solutions. The field of public relations can bring together a multitude of voices and is therefore an apt field from which to take up the tenets of articulation theory as they relate to environmental justice. More specifically to the current study, the island of Guahan is a site for a PR case study of environmental articulations and their related PR communication. It encompasses a myriad of stakeholder groups who engage in communicative activities, including the U.S. military, water and land activists, and the island's local government. This case study therefore employs qualitative research methods (interviews and textual analysis) regarding the construction of Camp Blaz, a U.S. Marine Corp Base on Guahan to draw conclusions on how these groups' communications characterize the natural environment, each other, and what it means to be indigenous. Findings point to ways public relations can augment conversations of environmental justice, specifically as it relates to how stakeholders are conceptualized, and how exploited voices can be brought to the fore.

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