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

博士候选人布里特达尔伯格（宾夕法尼亚大学），在阿德里安娜Petryna博士的指导下，将进行研究的作用，科学和社区的做法，在定义什么是一个地方及其居民被指定为“处于危险之中”。“以一个围绕石棉制造业建立的美国城镇为例，她的研究将探讨其他社区关注的问题如何被纳入或取代，重新关注石棉作为环境卫生紧急情况。通过民族志关注的观点和经验，在城镇的众多，她的研究将确定在石棉作为一种健康威胁的狭隘关注可能会排除对石棉的更广泛的社会和经济影响的关注的方式（以及其他共同关注的问题）从公共话语。本论文项目将采用参与观察，访谈和文件分析，以了解居民，社区团体，和政府机构各自定义城镇的主要风险，相互沟通，以及他们的相互作用如何塑造正在进行的环境风险调查的最终范围，以及公众对主要风险的理解，以及城镇的理想未来。本项目将促进人类学和科学技术研究对（1）身体、健康和环境如何围绕“风险”和“环境健康”的概念进行重新概念化和重新配置;“（2）专业知识、证据、评价知识生产实践的术语是：在利用科学解决公共问题和公民参与了解其生活环境时进行谈判;以及（3）在当代公共卫生研究和干预中运作的治理形式，越来越多地将建筑和社会环境纳入卫生研究。该项目还将有助于了解社区参与环境卫生研究的政治和利害关系，这可用于改善社区-科学合作实践。支持这项研究也支持研究生的教育。

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.