Laura Senier, Benjamin Hudson, Sarah Fort, Elizabeth Hoover, Rebecca Tillson, and Phil Brown
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520270206
- eISBN:
- 9780520950429
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520270206.003.0012
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter discusses a case study of the Brown University Superfund Research Program, in which academic researchers and state agency personnel collaborated with community activists in developing ...
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This chapter discusses a case study of the Brown University Superfund Research Program, in which academic researchers and state agency personnel collaborated with community activists in developing legislation to give temporary financial relief to residents of a contaminated neighborhood while they awaited cleanup. Relationships between stakeholders in cases involving contaminated sites are often contentious, in part because biomedical and engineering scientists are not trained to recognize and address the social problems that accompany the environmental hazards. By creating opportunities for cooperation, outreach efforts that make the research results more accessible can begin to repair trust among stakeholders and thus may pave the way for speedier site cleanup and reuse. This case study also shows how the inclusion of social scientists in a research translation and outreach program can contribute to a broader understanding of the social and political contexts that shape interactions between professionals and affected communities.Less
This chapter discusses a case study of the Brown University Superfund Research Program, in which academic researchers and state agency personnel collaborated with community activists in developing legislation to give temporary financial relief to residents of a contaminated neighborhood while they awaited cleanup. Relationships between stakeholders in cases involving contaminated sites are often contentious, in part because biomedical and engineering scientists are not trained to recognize and address the social problems that accompany the environmental hazards. By creating opportunities for cooperation, outreach efforts that make the research results more accessible can begin to repair trust among stakeholders and thus may pave the way for speedier site cleanup and reuse. This case study also shows how the inclusion of social scientists in a research translation and outreach program can contribute to a broader understanding of the social and political contexts that shape interactions between professionals and affected communities.
Olga Kuchinskaya
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027694
- eISBN:
- 9780262325417
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027694.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in ...
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Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like non-contaminated ones. It could only be known through constructed representations of it. The book explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. The analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards—toxins or global warming—that are largely imperceptible to the human senses. The book describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl’s consequences in Belarus—practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, the production of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from categorical work of redefining the scope and nature of the accident’s consequences to reshaping infrastructures for research and radiation protection. The book finds historical fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl’s consequences at different levels—among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, the book argues, is a function of power relations.Less
Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like non-contaminated ones. It could only be known through constructed representations of it. The book explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. The analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards—toxins or global warming—that are largely imperceptible to the human senses. The book describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl’s consequences in Belarus—practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, the production of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from categorical work of redefining the scope and nature of the accident’s consequences to reshaping infrastructures for research and radiation protection. The book finds historical fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl’s consequences at different levels—among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, the book argues, is a function of power relations.
