Declan Gemmill's ARIA Project: Comparative Environmentalism: Pipeline Protests in Canada and the US
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This summer, I was responsible for preparing an annotated bibliography on the comparative strength of environmental movements in Canada and the United States. My research specifically aimed at better understanding the dynamics of activist opposition to pipeline projects in Alberta and Texas. My project was a subcomponent of a broader research project on the politics of natural resources extraction in federal systems. To begin working on the annotated bibliography, I performed literature reviews in a variety of related research fields. Beginning this way was necessary because there is no literature on the comparative politics of pipelines in North America. To conclude my research project, I wrote a summary of the key findings from each field of literature.
I became interested in this research project through a conversation with Prof. Béland about my future study plans and his current work on fiscal federalism. I was interested in his research because I had attended the Â鶹AV Institute for the Study of Canada’s 2019 Conference on Canadian federalism and had previously studied the challenges to European federalism, making me want to pursue federalism studies further. Prof. Béland’s research project on the politics of natural resource extraction struck me as especially exciting because, before beginning my work for him, I had already studied environmental politics within the context of Canadian public policy. This background made me want to know how our national experience compared to other federal contexts.
My learning objectives were two-fold. First of all, practically speaking, I wanted to refine my skills in making comprehensive and incisive annotated bibliographies. By this, I mean that I wanted to become more comfortable surveying vast literatures and then synthesizing the main threads into a concise summary. I felt that refining this research skill would be of great benefit to my future studies and would help me become more adept at grappling with large amounts of material.
Secondly, I wanted to become more comfortable with comparative analysis. Since I would like to pursue comparative politics in graduate school, I saw the benefit of gaining independent research experience thinking critically about case studies, while exposing myself to hallmark works in comparative politics. I am glad to say that this project gave me the chance to pursue theoretical and historical puzzles in greater detail than anything I had been afforded through ordinary undergraduate research assignments.
A major highlight of my internship was when I had the chance to make substantive comments on a paper that was closely related to my research field. In reading the article, I realized just how much I had learned over the course of a summer doing research on comparative environmentalism. I felt a real sense of accomplishment being able to make helpful comments on an article that, only a couple of months earlier, would have been completely unknown territory to me.
One challenge to this research project was that the research field that deals directly with this topic is highly fragmented, meaning that drawing broad comparative conclusions is rather difficult. At first, I thought that this fragmentation would be a stumbling block, but once I formulated my learning objective into refining my comparative analysis skills, this stumbling block was transformed into an exciting new challenge. By reframing the problem, so to speak, I came to see the lack of a direct literature as an opportunity to contribute to the field and improve my own skills as a researcher.
For some time, I have wanted to pursue a graduate degree in political science. This internship has confirmed my desire by highlighting how rewarding comparative political science research can be. Moreover, this experience has offered me far more than classroom experience or academic knowledge: it has given me the practical experience of working within a research field. All this to say, my ARIA experience has me looking forward to what lies ahead!
I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Harry Samuel for his generous support in funding my Arts Undergraduate Internship Award experience. Without his contribution, I would neither have had the chance to develop my research skills nor have gained work experience with an expert. I would also like to thank the Arts Internship Office for its work in organizing this research experience for all of us. Finally, I would like to give my endless thanks to Prof. Béland for facilitating my learning experience throughout the summer. I am grateful for his support, generosity, and mentorship.
