Diduck, Alan.2006-07-282006-07-2820012001http://hdl.handle.net/10012/675Despite its complexity, environmental assessment (EA) is no more than a process to incorporate common-sense concerns about community futures into decisions that will affect the future. Interpreted broadly, common-sense concerns include scientific, technical, social, economic, legal, and political considerations. As such, EA has significant potential as a planning tool in the pursuit of sustainability, particularly when, through feedback mechanisms, common-sense concerns about community futures become modified in response to EA activities. That is, the potential of EA as a tool for sustainable development is heightened when learning occurs based on EA planning and decision-making experiences. To explore this assertion, the dissertation examined two questions: (1) To what extent do EA processes in Canada facilitate learning by individuals who participate in the process? and (2) What are the forms of and constraints on learning by individuals who participate in EA processes? My theoretical framework was transformative learning and my methodology was constructivist, largely post hoc, and involved a phased case study design. My data collection methods were document review, participant observation, and semi-structured, qualitative interviews. The first phase involved an extensive examination of EA public involvement systems in 11 Canadian jurisdictions. The second phase encompassed intensive case studies of Maple Leaf's $120 million hog processing facility in Brandon, Manitoba; the Salm Aquaculture Review, a strategic assessment from British Columbia; and, the Green Commuting Project, a local climate change initiative from Winnipeg, Manitoba. This stud y has established that the extent to which EA, as it is currently structured, facilitates mutual learning among participants is quite limited; in other words, EA processes deviate substantially from the ideal conditions of learning. EA in Canada remains largely within a comprehensive, synoptic paradigm dependent upon bureaucratic and technocratic institutional arrangements dominated by instrumental rationality. Further, learning through participation is constrained by a complex web of barriers to public involvement. Overall, these factors establish that the emancipatory potential of participation in environmental assessment is highly restricted. Opportunities for all participants to define their own meanings, intentions, and values are limited, which restricts opportunities to self-define broader goals and community futures. Further, the limits on emancipatory potential impinge learning through critical self reflection on socio-political presuppositions, and restrict opportunities for collective mobilization in opposition to dominant social forces. The research also highlighted the extent and importance of informal learning through participation in EA, but questioned the potential of current conceptions of EA as a vehicle for individual learning for sustainable development. Given the restricted emancipatory potential of participation in EA, environmental assessment offers limited potential to further social objectives of sustainability, such as local participation, empowerment, and equity. As well, the nature and incidence of instrumental learning documented in the cases confirm the ongoing dominance of conventional growth-oriented economic approaches. Further, larger contextual variables could counter what participants learn through involvement in EA as it is currently structured. The primary contribution of this dissertation is to nascent theory linking environmental assessment, learning and sustainable development. The study advocates greater flexibility in EA institutional arrangements to accommodate incremental or transactive approaches to planning and decision making. It also identifies 21 recommendations to policy makers for reform in EA administration and practice. Although some of these reforms have been discussed previously in the literature, they are unique as a package and serve to reorient EA as a forum of learning for sustainable development.application/pdf15736573 bytesapplication/pdfenCopyright: 2001, Diduck, Alan.. All rights reserved.Harvested from Collections CanadaDoctoral Thesis