Environmental Hazards and Pregancy Loss: Ethnographics in Three Communities

环境危害和流产：三个社区的民族志

• 批准号: 9601745
• 负责人: Linda Layne
• 金额: $ 6.5万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-01-01 至 1998-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9601745&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Environmental; Hazards; Pregancy; Loss; Ethnographics

The term `mother nature` rests on culturally and historically specific notions of both motherhood and nature. As we reach the end of the twentieth century, scientific and technological developments are influencing the meanings of both. This ethnographic study focuses on the issue of pregnancy loss in communities exposed to environmental toxins, in order to understand these changes. Obstetrical textbooks, popular literature and pregnancy support groups commonly portray miscarriages and stillbirths as `acts of nature.` This view obscures often relevant human impacts in communities and environments that influence these events. This study focuses on five communities, in New York, Louisiana, and Massachusetts, which have experienced an unusually high rate of pregnancy loss, and where these losses have been attributed to environmental hazards. The investigator will collect and examine oral, first-person accounts of these losses. She will examine legal, scientific, social scientific, and journalistic accounts as well. The stories will then be compared with those produced when pregnancy loss is not attributed to environmental hazards, to explore the ways in which the experience of reproductive loss is changed if the loss is perceived as the result of a humanly-corrupted nature. Miscarriages and stillbirths are important human experiences to which the special tools and perspectives of anthropology and science and technology studies can contribute greater understanding. The experiences of pregnancy loss and toxic contamination each challenge persons' views of themselves, their communities and environments; the intersection presents an ideal site to investigate usually tacit, taken-for-granted assumptions about motherhood, nature and science and technology, as well as the potentially different perceptions of different socio-economic, ethnic, and racial groups. The topic offers a valuable perspective to examine the lived experience of environmental crisis and can illuminate issues of equity and gender involved in environmental controversies. Further, the study will address issues of broad cultural concern, including issues of responsibility and blame, and democratic decision making. Results of this research will be presented at professional meetings and developed into a book aimed at scholars and an educated lay audience.

“大自然母亲”一词基于文化和历史上对母性和自然的具体概念。 在我们进入二十世纪之际，科学和技术的发展正在影响这两个概念的含义。 这项人种学研究的重点是暴露于环境毒素的社区中的妊娠丢失问题，以了解这些变化。 产科教科书、通俗文学和怀孕支助团体通常将流产和死产描述为“自然现象”。 这种观点掩盖了影响这些事件的社区和环境中往往相关的人类影响。 这项研究的重点是五个社区，在纽约，路易斯安那州和马萨诸塞州，经历了异常高的怀孕率损失，这些损失已被归因于环境危害。 调查员将收集和审查关于这些损失的第一人称口头叙述。 她将审查法律的，科学，社会科学，以及新闻帐户。 然后将这些故事与那些不归因于环境危害的怀孕损失进行比较，以探索如果将损失视为人类腐败性质的结果，则生殖损失的经验如何改变。 流产和死产是重要的人类经验，人类学和科学技术研究的特殊工具和视角可以促进对这些经验的更好理解。流产和有毒物质污染的经历都对人们对自己、社区和环境的看法提出了挑战;这种交叉点提供了一个理想的场所，可以调查关于母性、自然和科学技术的通常心照不宣的、理所当然的假设，以及不同社会经济、族裔和种族群体的潜在不同看法。 该主题提供了一个有价值的视角来审视环境危机的生活经验，并可以阐明环境争议中涉及的公平和性别问题。 此外，这项研究还将探讨广泛的文化关切问题，包括责任和指责问题以及民主决策问题。这项研究的结果将在专业会议上提出，并发展成一本书，针对学者和受过教育的外行观众。