Public Land, Money, and Use: The Rhetorical Calibration of Publics and Place

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine two recent attempts at land transfer, which is the idea that the federal government should pass ownership of its public lands to the states. I contend that recent attempts at land transfer have calibrated publics and place through rearticulations of public lands. In chapter two, money is the driving force behind land transfer, while land use is the central concern in chapter three. Together, these two chapters further my central argument that differential conceptions of land must be calibrated to differential conceptions of "publics." Further, the reverse is also true: divergent understandings of publicness produce divergent visions of the land and its use.