Histories of Industrial Hazard across a Globalizing World

美国国家科学基金会被要求为一个为期两天的“全球化世界中的工业危害历史”研讨会提供资金，该研讨会将于2007年12月在石溪大学举行。这次会议建立在最近学术界对探索科学史、环境史和地理学之间界限的兴趣基础上，正如2002年的一次会议和2004年OSIRIS题为《暴露的景观：现代环境中的知识和健康》的卷所反映的那样。这场会议和卷巩固了这些领域边界上的一系列新出现的主题和问题，超越了社会建构主义及其批评者引发的辩论。拟议中的会议将考验这一基金会的潜力。它还将通过挑出一种本地环境进行研究，探索在全球化这一早期努力中受到较少关注的世界范围叙事的方法。我们的选择利用了另一个相关的学术趋势。工业危害的历史，随着它呈现出更多的环境和生态层面，特别是在美国，也在许多国家引发了学术兴趣。这次会议还借鉴了最近两次关于工作场所危害的国际会议的先例，这两次会议分别于1998年在米兰和2006年在英国埃克塞特举行，后者由梅林和塞勒斯公司组织。这种就工业危害的历史进行国际对话的趋势，主要是在非美国的学者中进行，由于它与以OSIRIS卷为代表的美国学术的趋同，创造了一个独特的学术机会。智力上的好处：拟议的会议将通过以下方式促进这两个新兴的学术对话：(1)使来自科学史和医学史、环境史、地理学和其他学科邻居的代表能够进行更有针对性和更具比较性的讨论(2)提出跨国家和国际层面的问题，特别是与全球化有关的问题(3)突出关于工作场所内部和更广泛的环境危害之间的历史关系的问题(4)使对话的两个方面都国际化，通过在非美国学者(在最近的工业危害历史会议上占主导地位)和美国学者(在OSIRIS收藏中占主导地位)之间进行平衡。NSF的资助将使我们能够邀请25名学者，其中包括来自美国和外国的学者(来自英国和欧洲，以及印度、澳大利亚和南非)。将重点放在当前多位学者感兴趣的特定技术、有毒物质暴露和时间段上，我们将促进比较讨论和分析。我们还鼓励发表关于相关国际网络和机构的论文，以及关于危险技术和相关知识(无论是风险还是补救措施)如何从一个国家或地区传播到(或没有)另一个国家或地区的论文。广泛的影响：由此产生的讨论和编辑的卷将提供一个模型，说明更多的文化主义和物质主义的学术风格如何相互融合并有效地相互交谈，以及科学史学家和他们的学科邻居如何解决更新的全球范围的全球化叙事。通过这样做，我们将培育一个国际学术网络，刺激真正的跨国研究脉络，并推进对工业危害、知识和全球化之间的历史关系的理解，这种关系在构成和范围上都是国际性的。第二个目标是为当代从业者和政策制定者提供重要的历史背景和见解。

NSF funding is requested for a two-day workshop on "Histories of Industrial Hazard across a Globalizing World," which is to be held in December of 2007 at Stony Brook University. This conference builds on recent scholarly interest in exploring boundaries between the history of science, environmental history and geography, as reflected in a 2002 conference and resulting 2004 volume of OSIRIS entitled "Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Health in Modern Environments." That conference and volume consolidated an emergent set of themes and questions along the boundaries of these fields that moved beyond the debates generated by social constructivism and its critics. The proposed conference will test the potential of this foundation. It will also explore approaches to a world-scale narrative that received less attention in this earlier endeavor, globalization, by singling out one kind of local environment for study, that of modern industry. Our choice exploits another related scholarly trend. The history of industrial hazards, as it has taken on more environmental and ecological dimensions especially in the United States, has also sparked scholarly interest in many nations. The conference also builds on the precedents of two recent international conferences on workplace hazards, in Milan in 1998 and in Exeter, U.K., in 2006, the latter organized by Melling and Sellers. This trend toward international dialogue over the history of industrial hazards, mostly among non-U.S.-based scholars, paralleling as it has the convergences in American-based scholarship represented by the OSIRIS volume, has created a unique scholarly opportunity.Intellectual Merit: The proposed conference will advance both these emergent strands of scholarly dialogue by (1) enabling more focused and comparative discussion among representatives from history of science and medicine, environmental history, geography and other disciplinary neighbors (2) bringing out cross-national and international dimensions, especially relating to globalization (3) highlighting questions about the historical relationship between intra-workplace and wider environmental hazards (4) internationalizing both strands of dialogue, by balancing between non-American scholars (predominant in the recent conferences on history of industrial hazards) and American-based scholars (predominant in the OSIRIS collection). NSF-funding will enable us to invite 25 scholars, balanced between those who are American and foreign-based(from the U.K. and Europe, as well India, Australia, and South Africa). Tightening the focus to particular technologies, toxic exposures, and time periods that are of current interest to multiple scholars, we will facilitate comparative discussion and analysis. We are also encouraging papers on relevant international networks and institutions, and on the ways hazardous technologies and associated knowledge, whether of risks or remedies, have (or have not) traveled from one nation or territory to another.Broader Impacts: The resulting discussions and edited volume will offer a model for how more culturalist and materialist styles of scholarship may blend and effectively speak to one another, and for how historians of science and their disciplinary neighbors may address the newer worldscale narrative of globalization. In so doing, we will cultivate an international scholarly network, spur genuinely cross-national veins of inquiry, and advance the prospects for an understanding of the historical relationship between industrial hazards, knowledge, and globalization that is international in composition and scope. A secondary goal is to provide to important historical context and insight for contemporary practitioners and policy-makers.