Sponsor
Portland State University. School of Urban and Public Affairs
First Advisor
Connie Ozawa
Term of Graduation
Spring 2004
Date of Publication
Spring 3-16-2004
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Urban Studies
Department
Urban Studies
Language
English
Subjects
Group facilitation -- Northwest -- Pacific, Mediation -- Northwest -- Pacific, Hanford Site (Wash.), Columbia River Estuary (Or. and Wash.), Washington (State) -- Hanford Site
Physical Description
1 online resource; (180 pages)
Abstract
During World War II the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was one of several secret sites where the first nuclear bombs were built. This 586 square mile site was part of the land designated for the First Nations in the Treaty of 1855. This land was to be returned to the First Nations after it had been cleaned by the U.S. government. In 1994, after decades of contamination, the U.S. Department of Energy and other government agencies setup a board to advice on cleaning up of the site. The Hanford Advisory Board was to utilize a facilitator to assist the board members to reach a consensus on their advice.
This dissertation is a qualitative case study of the facilitation process of the Hanford Advisory Board. During an early phase of this work, members of one of the facilitation teams stated transformative facilitation techniques had been used. As a consequence, the concept of transformative mediation emerged as the focus of this research. Archival research, interviews, participant observation and focus groups were utilized to gather data. The data was analyzed using a variety of methods to determine if the decision-making process at the Hanford Advisory Board could be called transformative and if this process could produce better decisions than normal group processes. The study found that it was not possible to know if a transformation had occurred, and that if a balanced facilitation team had been available it is possible that a transformation could have occurred at some time in the future.
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43047
Recommended Citation
Black, David, "A Study of the Transformative Facilitation Process at the Hanford Advisory Board" (2004). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6758.
Comments
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