IMAGINED CULTURE AND CULTURAL IMAGING - CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE USDA-SCS HARMONY CAMPAIGN

From January, 1993, through April, 1994, the USDA Soil Conservation Se rvice conducted a multimedia public education campaign titled ''Harmon y.'' The campaign utilized Native American spokespersons and construct ed texts on Native American environmental ethics to raise public aware ness of conservation and to motivate participation in various programs . Although successful in terms of generating public responses, Harmony 's use of culture raises issues of representation, transference, and b rokering of environmental value systems. Cultural representation is ex amined in terms of authenticity, historical reconstruction, and stereo typing of Native Americans. Transference issues include attempts to br idge Native American and Euro-American assumptions about nature and hu man-nature relationships. Cultural brokering has to do with the secula rization and decontextualization of the Native American sacred cultura l systems for purposes of wider public consumption. Although such camp aigns may achieve positive public relations ends, they may not necessa rily work to change patterns of behavior or the dominant cultural etho s underlying Euro-American interactions with the environment.