Zoe Boiarsky
Abstract
This thesis critically examines how natural hazard memorials, specifically memorials memorializing flooding events, represent and display our human-environment interactions. The thesis begins by presenting information about four broad sets of categories used to classify and understand memorials. These four broad categories are then applied to the case study of flood memorials in the Northern Front Range of Colorado. The resulting information is used to develop and propose a new set of categories that specifically focuses on how natural hazard memorials portray the human role in natural disasters. Ultimately, this thesis proposes a set of three new categories: memorials that treat hazards as purely natural, memorials that portray hazards as a human-environment hybrid event, and memorials that present hazards as an anthropogenic event. This pattern demonstrates current trends in the way communities are presenting information on natural hazards through memorialization, which gives us a glimpse into larger trends regarding mitigation and recovery from extreme events.
Committee Members
Abby Hickcox (Chair)
Heide Bruckner
Lori Peek
Zoe Boiarsky is currently a senior double majoring in Spanish and Portuguese language and culture and in geography through the environment-society concentration at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also minoring in studio art. Boiarsky is also a student ambassador on campus and chair of the Honors Program Student Advisory Board. She is interested in the intersection of natural hazard memorialization, risk communication, public memory, and social justice.