Certainty Through Compromise: Wilderness Debates in the Utah Public Lands Initiative and the Search for “Stable Ground”
Abstract
Abstract This essay analyses wilderness debates in the Utah Public Lands Initiative (PLI). From 2012–2016, the PLI sought to answer the “question of wilderness” through a holistic, state-centric public lands bill. The effort was spearheaded by former Utah Representative Rob Bishop who argued that the state could achieve “certainty” through “compromise,” or that the state's problems with wilderness and public lands could be resolved by reaching consensus on how best to use those lands. Bishop sought input from seven Utah counties, who would submit their own proposals for how best to resolve pressing land-use issues in their respective counties. I examine public discourse about one proposal, from Grand County, analyzing county documents, newspaper reports, and citizen comment letters. Following work in rhetorical studies on wilderness, my analysis demonstrates how local communities construct wilderness and its meanings in a particular cultural moment. Reading the county's PLI rhetorics for how citizens valued wilderness and their relationships to public lands, I argue that the county had difficulty attaining compromise and certainty because citizens could not agree on the meanings of “wilderness.”
- Journal
- Rhetoric & Public Affairs
- Published
- 2024-12-01
- DOI
- 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.27.4.0053
- CompPile
- Search in CompPile ↗
- Open Access
- Closed
- Topics
- Export
- BibTeX RIS
Citation Context
Cited by in this index (0)
No articles in this index cite this work.
References (0)
No references on file for this article.
Related Articles
-
Res Rhetorica Oct 2025Fractured borders and politics of resistance: Post-9/11 through Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush (2022) ↗BETÜL ATEŞCİ KOÇAK
-
Res Rhetorica Oct 2025Alma Vančura
-
Res Rhetorica Jun 2025Language as a front of conflict: Russian discourse on the Ukrainian language in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war ↗Nadia Gergalo-Dabek
-
Philosophy & Rhetoric Apr 2025Nirvana Tanoukhi; Nicholas Dunn
-
Rhetoric & Public Affairs Dec 2024Randall Fowler