Department of Human & Community Development, University of Illinois

Stephen Gasteyer

 

Education

Ph.D. 2001, Iowa State University, Sociology

M.S. 1998, Iowa State University, Rural Sociology

B.A. 1987, Earlham College, International Studies

 

Research Interests

Civic infrastructure; social and community capitals; sustainability; human dimensions of environmental change; community capacity and leadership; and triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods.

I have three related research interests. First, I am interested in community development as a process of building community capacity for positive and lasting change. I specifically focus on the development of community systems for the implementation and management of basic infrastructure systems (specifically water and wastewater) and mobilization and organization to protect related critical resources (such as water quality). As part of this research, I grapple with questions of planning, economic development, alternative agriculture, privatization, operations capacity, and governance of municipal systems.

Second, as part of better understanding how to build community capacity, I am interested in the impacts of community leadership training and other interventions. Many resources are expended in the United States and internationally on leadership training and technical assistance. My research focuses on ways of measuring the development of community and individual capacities and evaluating the impacts of types of technical assistance and leadership training. I also look at the contingencies that enable or hinder the development of local leadership.

Third, for the last decade I have researched the development of community indicators of environmental change. My research in the Palestinian territories and Iowa demonstrated that perceptions of landscape change are not necessarily objective, and in fact are part of political and social narratives that have much to do with the hegemony of particular political and social forces. Locally developed indicators of environmental change can be important in mobilizing alternative movements. My research focuses not only on the processes described above, but also on the politics and organization behind the development of local indicators movements.

 

Selected Publications

Gasteyer, Stephen. 2004. Tapping Untapped Potential: The Role of NGO Technical Assistance Providers in Building Financing, Implementation, and Management Capacity for Water Service. WSS Small Town Initiative, Water Thematic Group, The World Bank, Washington, DC.

Gasteyer, Stephen. 2004. Building Bridges: Community-based Social Networks for Sustainable and Secure Water Management. Water Resources Update, No. 127, February 2004. pp. 31-30.

Gasteyer, Stephen. 2003. “ Water utility-farmer Co-operation in the US. ” Chapter 11 in Brouwer, F, I. Heinz, T. Zabel (eds.) Governance of Water-Related Conflicts in Agriculture: New Directions in Agri-Environmental and Water Policies in the EU. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

Gasteyer, Stephen. 2002. “Which Way to Change the Tide: Understanding the Debate over International Water Privatization.” In Rural Matters, Summer 2002, pp.13-16.

Gasteyer, S. 2000. “Manathar Tabia'i: Perceptions of Landscape and Landscape Change in the Southeastern West Bank. ” Pp. 37-47 in Abu-Lughod, Roger Heacock, and Khaled Nashef (eds.) The Landscape of Palestine: Equivocal Poetry. Birzeit, Palestine: Birzeit University Publications.

Gasteyer, Stephen P., Cornelia B. Flora, Edith Fernandez-Baca, Damayanti Banerji, Stacy Bastian, and Silvia Aleman. 2002. Community Participation for Conservation and Development of Natural Resources: A Summary of Literature and Report of Research Findings. Delta Development Journal, Vol 1 (1).

Gasteyer, Stephen and Cornelia Flora. 2000. “Modernizing the Savage: Colonization and Perceptions of Landscape and Lifescape.” Sociologia Ruralis, Vol. 40 (1): 128-149.

Gasteyer, Stephen and Cornelia Flora. 2000. “Measuring ppm with Tennis Shoes: Science and Locally Meaningful Indicators of Environmental Quality.” Society and Natural Resources, Vol. 13:589-597.

Isaac, Jad and Stephen Gasteyer. 1997. "Sustainable Agriculture in Palestine: A case for the promotion of rainfed farming," Journal of Alternative Agriculture, Vol 12 (3): 110-119.

 

Professional Affiliations

American Water Resources Association

American Water Works Association

Community Development Society

Gamma Sigma Delta

International Association for Society and Natural Resources

International Society for Quality of Life Studies

International Sustainable Indicators Network

Rural Sociological Society

Sigma Xi

 

Courses Taught

AGED 360: Integrating Leadership (Capstone for the Leadership Series)

HCD 595: Community Development Topics and Theories