The concept of stewardship has direct bearing on the way people care for (or neglect) the place they are in; depending on who is given stewardship and how people consider their responsibilities as stewards, a place can either flourish for all living things that depend on it or fall into disrepair. To make a broad generalisation, as people become less connected to a sense of place, stewardship of a particular place becomes less important. Though this might be a question to prove or disprove via research; I think it generally safe to assume that most people have little specific impetus for stewardship. Though the term is bandied about at all levels concerning the environment, I sense that most people have a poorly defined concept of stewardship at the median level (e.g. they may be good stewards of a household and have a fairly defined idea of the macro-environmental issues at hand; however, they may not fully grasp the issues surrounding their local water table, forest, or wildlife). I would propose that, without an understanding of this median level of stewardship, people cannot fully address the micro- and macro-environmental issues (whether the people in question are considered stewards themselves or are holding to account those who have been appointed as such).
The Centre for Stewardship in Falkland, Fife is working on a model of Stewardship (from the personal to large estate management) through its various training and awareness programs. I hope to supplement their work with a useful dissertation piece; we will work in collaboration on the research and I plan to be accountable to them through the process. When the research and writing is finished, the CfS has requested I present my findings in some manner of public forum and/or produce a version that is easily readable and accessible by their constituents. I also hope to rework the dissertation into a publishable article for a general audience (though, as the target audience of the dissertation is already broad, I hope to make it accessible from the outset). I hope to find, through research and writing of the dissertation, a sensible place to publish the material. (One option I am considering is using the material gathered for the foundations of an online forum or wiki where others could contribute their own thoughts and research on stewardship. The dissertation could then become the genesis of a larger collaborative work on the topic.)