Colleen C. Hiner

University of California-Davis

Places on the urban fringe are faced with significant policy and management challenges as stakeholder interests are plural and numerous, the environmental context is shifting, and the pressures of urbanization add urgency and a sense of threat to decision-making processes. Perspectives of, and preferred management strategies for, natural resources vary among residents, public officials, and other stakeholders based on a number of factors including residential background (i.e., rural or urban), political ideologies (i.e., conservative or liberal), and the environmental imaginaries of the actor. Water, as both a physio-material and symbolic resource, is deconstructed using the case of a sheep ranch turned elite golf course in Calaveras County, California.