Place-based sustainability communication for watershed conservation in a university campus / Siti Norasiah Abd. Kadir

Siti Norasiah , Abd. Kadir (2023) Place-based sustainability communication for watershed conservation in a university campus / Siti Norasiah Abd. Kadir. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

Anthropogenic activities in combination with urbanization, increased population and people’s disconnection with their environment are triggering unprecedented sustainability issues in urban watersheds, especially in a developing country like Malaysia. As this involves a complex social-ecological system, solutions for conservation must include social consideration such as the meanings, feeling, emotions and values that people have developed with place. Building from Masterson et al.’s (2017) framework, key to this is the study of people’s sense of place as one of the useful strategies that has been recognized to enable stewardship and pro-environmental behavior. Solving conservation issues should also be part of social and political discourse. Thus, this research aims to investigate in what way place-based thinking can enhance sustainability communication to promote public participation in watershed conservation by answering two research questions: 1) What are the evoked ‘sense of place’ related to watershed conservation and 2) In what way can the sense of place identified earlier be translated into sustainability communication. This research also demonstrates how the application of community-based participatory research approach i.e., co-production can be used for meaning-forming on the sense of place and co-designing place-based sustainability communication (PBSC) strategies – using multiple qualitative data collection methods including document analysis, semi-structured interviews, vox-pop interviews and co-production workshops, and the data were further analyzed using thematic analysis and triangulation method. Tasik Varsiti, Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur as part of an urban Sungai Klang watershed and an example of socio-ecological system has been chosen as the case study in this research. Results suggested that the sense of place responses emphasized people’s connection to historical values, place and identity, lived experience, wellness, as well as collective responsibility. The interpretation and translation of these responses based on selected concepts, message contents, and modes may work as a compelling intervention in PBSC that can potentially promote public participation in urban watershed conservation. As a way forward, the actual design, implementation and evaluation on the effectiveness of PBSC could be explored.

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