Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Long-Term Impacts of Industrial Chemistry Innovation in the U.S.

在二十世纪的大部分时间里，工业化学的创新对美国的经济增长做出了重大贡献。伊士曼-柯达等公司的成功支撑了纽约罗切斯特等城市。虽然这些行业不再雇佣数万名工人，因为胶片已经被数字成像所取代，但它们对这些社区的影响仍然是显而易见的和持久的。这个项目培训一名研究生如何进行严格的、有经验的科学实地考察，探索化学摄影业如何改变这些地区的社会、经济和环境。阿里·费瑟在芝加哥大学约瑟夫·马斯科博士的指导下，将调查化学摄影是如何在社会生活、工人的记忆和区域生态中存在的。首先，这个项目将考察失业工人如何讨论柯达对社会生活和当地景观的影响，以及他们如何理解导致柯达衰落的成像技术和全球经济的变化。其次，通过与工人、公共卫生专家和环保主义者的接触，该项目将探索改变区域生态的工业化学和废物管理的实践。这位研究人员将在罗切斯特进行为期24个月的实地研究，采用各种社会科学方法，包括参与者观察、访谈、口述历史、系谱、档案研究以及与当地科学家和其他专家的合作。这项研究涉及人类学中长期和新出现的问题，如大规模经济转型、人类与环境的关系以及媒体研究。这项研究的结果将有助于对美国去工业化的定性理解。通过构建详细的传记和政治历史中较低级别员工的描述，这项研究将突出市场转型对那些最容易受到这种转变影响的个人的后果。通过以便于理解的视觉和叙事形式向公众展示其科学发现，这项研究将提供工具和数据来参与环境问题。

Innovations in industrial chemistry contributed significantly to American economic growth through much of the twentieth century. Cities such as Rochester, New York, were bolstered by the success of companies like Eastman-Kodak. While these industries no longer employ tens of thousands of workers as film has been obsolesced by digital imaging, their impact on these communities remains palpable and enduring. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, explores how the chemical photography industry transformed these regions socially, economically, and environmentally. Ali Feser, under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Masco of the University of Chicago, will investigate how chemical photography has endured in social life, in the memories of workers, and in regional ecology. First, this project will examine how displaced workers discuss Kodak's impact on social life and the local landscape, and how they understand the changes in imaging technology and the global economy that contributed to Kodak's decline. Second, through engagement with workers, public health experts, and environmentalists, this project will explore the practices of industrial chemistry and waste management that transformed the regional ecology. The researcher will undertake twenty-four months of field research in Rochester, employing a variety of social science methodologies, including participant-observation, interviews, oral histories, genealogies, archival research, and collaborations with local scientists and other experts. This research engages with long-standing and emergent concerns in anthropology, such as large-scale economic transformations, the relationship between humans and their environments, and the study of media. The results of this research will contribute to qualitative understandings of deindustrialization in the U.S. By framing accounts of lower-level employees in detailed biographical and political histories, this study will highlight the consequences of market transformation for those individuals most vulnerable to such shifts. By presenting its scientific findings to the public in accessible visual and narrative form, this research will provide tools and data to engage environmental issues.