Bob Graham Center for Public Service

We all have relationships with the places we call home. As sea levels rise, temperatures increase, and the ranges of native plants and animals shift, Florida’s environment is changing and our relationships with those places must change, too.

As part of the Bob Graham Center’s doctoral dissertation fellows program, we are pleased to present Why We Love Where We Live: Climate Change and Sense of Place.

This luncheon panel was co-hosted with The Marjorie.  The purpose of the panel was to connect research on the sense of place theory with stories from individuals who are working to reimagine how Floridians and people everywhere can come to terms with the constantly changing futures of the places they love.

A recording of this event can be viewed on the BGC YouTube channel.

Panelists:

	Hannah Brown Hannah Brown is a journalist, science communicator, and social scientist. She is a co-founder and editorial director of The Marjorie, an independent reporting nonprofit that covers environmental and social justice stories in Florida. She also serves as the communications and engagement specialist for the NOAA RESTORE Science Program. She has worked as a journalist since 2010, previously serving as a staff reporter for the Gainesville Sun and Lake City Reporter.
	Pilar Morales Pilar Morales Giner is a 2022 Bob Graham Center dissertation completion fellow, and recently graduate from UF with a Ph.D. in sociology. Her research explores the ways in which communities and stakeholders are affected by and respond to environmental change. Her dissertation focuses on a set of contextual factors that can explain local differences in responses toward climate change. She is also currently involved in a range of collaborative academic projects. She coordinates a working group at UF (Assessing Environmental Governance in the Amazon, AEGA) that aims to integrate the social, economic, and geographical aspects of environmental governance. In addition, together with a group of inter-disciplinary scholars, they published an article that explores applied research in conservation criminology.
	N’Kwanda Jah N’Kwanda Jah is a co-founder of the Cultural Arts Coalition in Gainesville, which was established as a nonprofit in 1983. She has created and implemented a community arts festival, cultural, social and academic programs for youth, developed an award winning musical video on recycling and worked with numerous community organizations throughout Alachua County. She is also a contributor for The Marjorie. Read her essay at this link.
	Jesse Wilson Jesse Wilson is the Youth Gardens Program Coordinator at Working Food, a nonprofit that cultivates local food resiliency in Gainesville, Florida. She also makes Florida-inspired linocuts as Watkahootee Print. Her life revolves around a large vegetable garden and a flock of free-range hens that she lovingly tends with her husband, her son, and two dogs on their rural north Florida property. She is also a contributor for The Marjorie. Read her essay at this link.