Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.

Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.

Author ORCID Identifier

N/A

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Communication

Year Degree Awarded

2015

Month Degree Awarded

September

First Advisor

Henry Geddes Gonzales

Second Advisor

Leda Cooks

Third Advisor

Bjorn Harald Nordtveit

Subject Categories

Communication Technology and New Media | Education | Environmental Studies | International and Intercultural Communication | Organizational Communication | Science and Technology Studies | Social Influence and Political Communication | Social Media | Urban Studies and Planning

Abstract

Through the lens of a participatory action research platform that I founded called The BGreen Project (BGreen), my research explores networked political economic connections that were developed as a result of this academic-community initiative. BGreen was a participatory action research platform that connected urban high school, college, university youth in an assortment of participatory/deliberative activities in the fields of education and environment. With their ongoing engagement in the participatory network called BGreen, Bangladeshi youth are negotiating their affiliation to diverse political economic structures (for example, their educational institutions) in creative ways and forging innovative methods of transformative participation as a means for potentially deep, sustained and long-term social change. I am proposing that a shift in the organizational structure of higher educational systems is the need of the hour in Bangladesh, where the youth can be key players in developing a new architecture for critical and socially engaged educational processes in Bangladesh. Combining the theoretical paradigms of Actor Network Theory (ANT) and Participatory Action Research (PAR), I argue for the development of what I call the BGreen participatory network that is informed by the democratic inclusion of multi human and non-human actors/actants to address the challenges at hand.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/7536865.0

Download

Share

COinS