Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Knowledge Production in Environmental Risk Research in the United States

博士候选人Britt Dahlberg（宾夕法尼亚大学）将在Adriana Petryna博士的指导下，对科学和社区实践在定义一个地方及其居民被指定为“危险”意味着什么方面的作用进行研究。她以美国一个围绕石棉制造业建立的城镇为例，研究其他社区关切如何被纳入或被重新关注石棉作为环境卫生紧急情况所取代。通过对该镇众多观点和经验的民族志关注，她的研究将确定将石棉作为健康威胁的狭隘关注排除在公众话语中对石棉更广泛的社会和经济影响（以及其他问题）的关注的方式。本论文项目将采用参与者观察，访谈和文件分析来了解居民，社区团体和政府机构如何各自定义城镇的主要风险，相互沟通这些风险，以及他们的互动如何塑造正在进行的环境风险调查的最终范围，以及公众对城镇主要风险和理想未来的理解。该项目将促进人类学和科学技术研究对以下方面的理解：(1)身体、健康和环境如何围绕“风险”和“环境健康”的概念被重新概念化和重新配置；(2)当科学被用于解决公共问题，当公民参与到关于他们所生活的环境的知识的形成过程中时，专业知识、证据和评估知识生产实践的术语是如何重新协商的；(3)在当代公共卫生研究和干预措施中，越来越多地将建筑和社会环境纳入卫生研究的治理形式。该项目还将有助于了解让社区参与环境卫生研究的政治和利害关系，这可用于改进社区科学合作做法。支持这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

Doctoral candidate Britt Dahlberg (University of Pennsylvania), under the guidance of Dr. Adriana Petryna, will conduct research on the role of scientific and community practices in defining what it means for a place and its residents to be designated "at risk." Taking as a case example a United States town founded around asbestos manufacturing, her research will examine the ways in which other community concerns become incorporated into, or displaced by, a renewed focus on asbestos as an environmental health emergency. Through ethnographic attention to the multitude of perspectives and experiences in the town, her research will identify the ways in which a narrow focus on asbestos as a health threat may exclude concerns about asbestos' broader social and economic effects (as well as other concerns altogether) from public discourse.This dissertation project will employ participant-observation, interviewing, and document analysis to understand how residents, community groups, and government agencies each define the main risks of the town, communicate these with one another, and how their interactions shape the ultimate scope of the on-going environmental risk investigation, as well as public understandings of the primary risks, and ideal futures, for the town. This project will advance anthropological and science and technology studies' understandings of (1) how bodies, health, and environment are being re-conceptualized and reconfigured around ideas of "risk" and "environmental health;" (2) how expertise, evidence, and the terms for evaluating knowledge-production practices are re-negotiated when science is used to address public problems and when citizens are involved in the making of knowledge about the environments in which they live; and (3) the forms of governance operating in contemporary public health research and interventions which increasingly incorporate the built and social environment into health research. This project will also contribute to knowledge of the politics and stakes of involving communities in environmental health research, which may be used to improve community-science collaboration practices. Supporting this research also supports the education of a graduate student.