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Full-text, in-print version here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616688.2012.699090Citation: Nost, E. 2013. The Power of Place: Tourism Development in Costa Rica. Tourism Geographies. 15(1): 88-106.In this paper, I question how representations of tourist destinations color and are colored by development. Presenting the results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted on the southern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, I find that the authenticity of portrayals of place is important not for its veracity, but for the social work it performs. Authenticity is not merely socially constructed but expressive of social relations which value people and places. Tourist perceptions of the caribe sur as genuinely underdeveloped—gauged by an analysis of photos and guidebooks as well as surveys—produce an approach to resource use within the community that is limiting. Because the value of the place is its underdevelopment, development itself constrains the possibility of sustaining further growth. Ultimately, reading development via place can be a guide for critically appreciating contemporary patterns of tourism and sustainable development in the caribe sur and elsewhere.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Organizations included in website analyses and their geographic scope.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Organizations included in website analyses and their geographic scope.

Supplemental material, Complexities Study Protocol for Improving spatial decision making using interactive maps: An empirical study on interface complexity and decision complexity in the North American hazardous waste trade by Kristen Vincent, Robert E Roth, Sarah A Moore, Qunying Huang, Nick Lally, Carl M Sack, Eric Nost and Heather Rosenfeld in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

Supplemental material, Complexities Study Protocol for Improving spatial decision making using interactive maps: An empirical study on interface complexity and decision complexity in the North American hazardous waste trade by Kristen Vincent, Robert E Roth, Sarah A Moore, Qunying Huang, Nick Lally, Carl M Sack, Eric Nost and Heather Rosenfeld in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

At the center of debates regarding food system transformation are socio-technical innovations involving novel foods and novel ways to produce food. In this thesis, I examine digital agriculture technologies such as e-commerce platforms, and alternative proteins such as cellular agriculture as two agri-food innovations with much promise to fundamentally transform the way we produce, process, distribute, and consume food across scales. I contribute to sustainability transformation literature and practice by undertaking empirically informed critiques of agri-food innovations, developing a more nuanced characterization for their potential promise, and advancing community-based research to scrutinize their impacts on-the-ground. My thesis begins by examining the sustainability-related tradeoffs of entomophagy and cellular agriculture. I found that alternative proteins have substantial potential to positively impact the global food system across multiple dimensions, such as food price stability and environmental sustainability; however, technical barriers to scale and high potential cost may dampen their impact. In my later chapters I assess the framings of and potential futures for agri-food innovation. I found three distinct framings for how digital agriculture technologies are transforming food systems, and a lack of civil society participation within these discussions. In addition, I found that access, integration, and centralization are key dimensions across which cellular agriculture can be assessed in terms of its promise to transform food systems. In my final phase of research, I partnered with an e-commerce platform to survey local food system stakeholders in Ontario to better understand their digital technology needs. I found that stakeholders are keen to use digital tools, but political economic barriers across the digital platform sector prevent their widespread benefits from being realized. This thesis advances sustainability transformation scholarship by explicitly considering its normative dimensions: transformation of what? For what purpose? By whom? Crucially, the myriad ways in which agri-food innovations are governed can result in diverse forms of change, following less or more business-as-usual processes. Hybridized governance processes and increased public and civil society participation are crucial to achieve sustainable food system transformations. Future scholarship that advances actionable research projects with civil society and public stakeholders can open space for imagined, desired, and possible futures. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

High resolution digital soil maps and precision farm technologies are changing the way scientists, policy makers and land managers communicate the ecosystem service values of soils. Soil organic carbon decision-support systems are a way to combine human and computer power to better account for the multiple benefits of conserving carbon in agri-environmental decision-making. This study evaluates opportunities and barriers surrounding the adoption of SOC DSS on working lands in Southern Ontario by conducting document analysis, Q survey and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in Ontario and the US. Applying the framework of salience, credibility and legitimacy, this research reveals insights to achieve more effective communication about SOC management with DSS by identifying four ways of thinking about their development, design and deployment. The current emphasis on precisely measuring and monitoring SOC has implications for working lands stakeholders due to the cost, complexity, rigidity and lack of social trust surrounding precision approaches. The SSHRC Institutional Explore Program and the Food from Thought Digital Agriculture Research Fund.

The climate crisis is the greatest threat facing humanity today, and global agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change. Canadian agriculture is largely industrial and export-oriented, with many environmental consequences. Despite the hegemony of conventional agriculture in Canada, agroecological farmers are using farming methods rooted in respect for our ecosystems, communities, and food sovereignty. Furthermore, agroecology also has an impressive potential to mitigate the climate crisis through the sequestration of carbon in soils. This research investigates the opportunities and barriers agroecological farmers in Canada face, with PEI as a case study. I interviewed 30 farmers and farm organization representatives, finding that agroecological Island farmers are already experiencing climate anxiety and undertaking a variety of resilience strategies as a result. However, these efforts are not being structurally supported by governments who claim to prioritize climate justice and climate change mitigation. SSHRC, OGS