Dissertation Improvement Grant: An Ethnographic Study of Environmental Contamination, Risk Perception, and Advocacy in a Post-IBM Community in Upstate New York

本研究探讨了社区的看法，反应，并在恩迪科特，纽约，那里的微电子生产产生了有毒的化学沉积物的环境和职业健康风险的竞争方式。它探讨了在一个社区，广泛的国家和企业的补救工作正在发生的有毒污染的风险认知和宣传的接口。该研究融合了定量和定性的方法来调查社区对这些补救措施的反应和看法，以及风险感知的减少或加剧程度。在社会运动理论和环境正义观点的指导下，中心研究问题包括：环境对生活在后工业时代、环境污染的微电子工业环境中的社区成员意味着什么？社区对风险和补救措施的看法如何？是什么促使居民和工人采取行动？集体组织的经验如何告知或改变人们对政府环境和职业卫生机构的看法，以及他们所依赖的科学来就社区关切问题作出决定和采取行动？这些问题告诉我们什么方法和理论的风险，监管和公众参与环境和职业健康的辩论？研究地点位于纽约的恩迪科特，以前是IBM的一家工厂，该工厂于20世纪30年代开始制造商业机器及其组件，并于40多年前开始制造半导体。恩迪科特被列入美国环保署的国家优先事项清单，目前面临三氯乙烯（TCE）污染问题，该问题已成为多机构应对计划的重点，以补救和了解当地的环境和职业健康风险。研究方法包括：1）对社区居民进行深入的定性访谈; 2）通过问卷调查检验风险感知与补救技术之间关系的假设; 3）对倡导团体进行人种学观察。

This study examines community perceptions of, responses to, and ways of contesting environmental and occupational health risks in Endicott, New York, where microelectronics production has yielded toxic chemical deposits. It explores the interface of risk perception and advocacy related to toxic contamination in a community where extensive state and corporate remediation efforts are taking place. The research blends quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate community responses to and perceptions of these remediation efforts and the extent to which risk perception is reduced or exacerbated. Guided by social movement theory and environmental justice perspectives, the central research questions include: What does the environment mean to community members living in a postindustrial, environmentally contaminated microelectronic industry setting? What is the community's perception of risk and of remediation efforts? What prompts residents and workers to take action? How does the experience of collective organizing inform or transform peoples' perceptions of government-based environmental and occupational health agencies and the science they rely on to make decisions and act on community concerns? What do these questions tell us about approaches to and theories of risk, regulation and public participation in environmental and occupational health debates? The study site, Endicott, New York, formerly housed an IBM plant that began manufacturing business machines and their components in the 1930s and started fabricating semiconductors over forty years ago. Listed under the U.S. EPA's National Priorities List, Endicott currently faces a trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination problem that has become the focus of a multi-agency response plan to remediate and understand local environmental and occupational health risk. This multi-method study includes: 1) in-depth qualitative interviewing of community residents; 2) testing hypotheses about the relationship between risk perception and remediation technology via survey; 3) ethnographic observation of advocacy groups.