I am a scholar in storytelling for sustainability. My interdisciplinary research and teaching opens up innovative ways for understanding how ecological well-being is integrally connected to constructions and understandings of human identity, community, and culture. My PhD research was in Interdisciplinary Studies—Storytelling for Sustainability at The University of British Columbia. I have applied an empirical research portfolio to pivotal natural resource and environmental issues throughout the western United States. With a regional participatory integrated assessment for the Georgia Basin Futures Project (GEOIDE GeoCognito), I demonstrated expertise in collaborative resource management and environmental decision-making. With Meeting the Climate Change Challenge: Municipal Responses to British Columbia Climate Policy, I demonstrated expertise in sustainable rural communities and policy analysis, by bridging the gap between provincial climate mandates and local implementation. I have written and edited for powerful public science agencies and created manuals for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. My book, « Dreams, Guns & Gorillas » is the result of community-based research on climate change and forest conservation, with a focus on ecotourism for critically endangered mountain gorillas and chimpanzees in Uganda’s UNESCO World Heritage Bwindi-Impenetrable National Park.
In addition to research and attaining funding, I am passionate about my students. My teaching philosophy roots in percipio quo Natura, in Natura (to learn from Nature, in Nature) and uses Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Emersonian Triangle” of scholarly development and effectiveness—Nature, Books and Action. Coursework I have developed and delivered ranges from Sustainable Tourism & Adventure Travel for Weber State University (in person, upper undergraduate) to Wilderness Survival (blended, upper undergraduate) to Sustainable Development: From Theory to Practice for Royal Roads University (asynchronous online, upper graduate). I have built, established as an accredited part of the curriculum, and implemented two entire natural resources and environmental management programs: Wrangell Mountains Field Studies at The Evergreen State College and The Environment & Climate Institute at Fort Lewis College. As a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, I volunteer with search and rescue teams, and I have natural science drawings on display across the country in an effort to reach the broader community.
Storytelling to Adapt Outdoor Recreation and Tourism to Environmental Change
My research and adventure travel writing in nine different countries on five continents has inspired my scholarly trajectory of storytelling for sustainability in the face of environmental change. My research program contains three strands—(1) narrative/narrativity, (2) outdoor recreation and tourism, and (3) environmental change. I am interested in the value and potential of narrative/narrativity to create an inclusive and compelling version of the sustainability story grounded in the best of both expert and normative knowledge on environmental change issues such as:
- Shifting hydrological dynamics of watersheds in ski areas (e.g., accelerated snowmelt and peak winter accumulation moving earlier in the season)
- Expanding drought, dust storms and fire incidence in desert state and national parks
- Increased agricultural runoff and cyanobacteria accumulation in recreational fresh water
My methodology will consist of ethnographic and qualitative research in the form of participant observation and interviews of tourists, local community members, natural scientists, land managers, elected officials, and BLM and forest service representatives in ski areas, desert, and fresh water tourism and recreation destinations. This work is crucial because effective outdoor tourism and recreation management in the face of uncertain environmental change will require truly adaptive management approaches informed by the best of both expert and normative knowledge. An authoritative and compelling adaptive outdoor recreation and tourism story promises to support more sustainable policy, planning and management.
What’s the story with sustainability? A narrative analysis of diverse and contested understandings
2016
Since the coining of the term “sustainability/sustainable development,” diverse and contested understandings of sustainability theory and practice have circulated both within the academy and the public at large. For the most part, sustainability has been approached from a very science-dominated perspective. That is only part of the story: while science is important for sustainability, science alone cannot account for the many situated dimensions of life. In contrast to science, story—or narrative—as both a mode of knowing and process of knowledge construction, can account for life’s place-, time-, and event-dependent dimensions. This paper performs a narrative analysis of eight different conceptual frameworks of sustainability—Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, Ecofeminism, Environmental History and Human Geography/Ecology, Complex Adaptive Systems, Political Ecology, Ecological Economics, and Business and Sustainability—to identify where these frameworks are commensurate and irreconcilable, with the aim of exploring a coherent alternative to current practice and conventional ways of thinking.
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Writing about sustainability science for the media: How to be both true-to-fact and tell a good story.
2014
Communicating the findings of sustainability science credibly, accurately, and in ways that meet the needs of public communities presents a challenge for academic researchers. This article reviews the findings of communicating sustainability science to a community audience through mainstream media, from an online blog written by a sustainability studies postdoctoral fellow for the New York Times (NYT)–Scientist at Work. The postdoctoral fellow reported in the blog (March 19–26, 2013) on sustainable community development research on the coast of British Columbia. Field reports included textual and photographic information, with supporting multimedia documentation. Based on lessons learned with the NYT–Scientist at Work, this article identifies a set of best practices sustainability scientists might employ to communicate their research both true-to-fact and telling a good story. Recommended communication of sustainability science best practices include: (a) Find the sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the science; (b) It's the scientist's byline—be prepared to defend all the scientific findings regardless of their source; (c) Make science dissemination a part of the research process, not an afterthought; (d) Little of the science will actually get published—find the sound bites; and (e) Leave time for rights and permissions discussions.
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Dreams, Guns and Gorillas: A Memoir of Survival
2013
Frank, A. (2013). Dreams, guns, & gorillas: A memoir of survival. Burnaby, BC: Write Room Press.
Moontime in Eagle Creek: Stories for Sustainability
2009
(Updated abstract)
The most common and influential approaches to sustainability in contemporary western society have been science-based. Consequently, sustainable living is usually defined in generalized, universalized, and quantified terms. While science is important for sustainable living, science alone cannot incorporate critical, yet specific, places, times, and events. Sustainable living in one country may not be sustainable in another, sustainable living right now may not be so in the future, sustainable living for me may not be sustainable for you, for example. What’s more, science itself is embedded in and reproduces place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions. Negotiating these dimensions of life into our understanding and practice of sustainability is imperative. In contrast to science, narrative seeks to construct and reflect knowledge of place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions of life; narrative as a mode of knowing is concrete, contextualized, specific, personally convincing, circular, imaginistic, interpersonal and emotive. Narrative, as well, is a process of knowledge construction, a way of coming to know place(s), time(s), and event(s). The goal of this dissertation is to negotiate, humbly, both science and narrative. My negotiation between science and narrative takes place in Eagle Creek, a 2.21km long creek in West Vancouver, British Columbia. Eagle Creek begins from a reservoir and flows through forested municipal land, undeveloped private land, and developed residential land before discharging into the Pacific Ocean. My hope is that in this story is an opportunity for you to negotiate, for yourself, new ways of knowing sustainability and living it, wherever, whenever, and however it may be for you.
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