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

在20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。纽约罗彻斯特等城市受到伊士曼-柯达等公司成功的支撑。虽然这些行业不再雇佣数以万计的工人，因为胶片已经被数字成像所淘汰，但它们对这些社区的影响仍然明显而持久。该项目旨在培养一名研究生如何进行严格的实证科学实地考察，探讨化学摄影行业如何改变这些地区的社会、经济和环境。在芝加哥大学约瑟夫·马斯科博士的指导下，阿里·费瑟将调查化学摄影术如何在社会生活、工人的记忆和地区生态中经久存在。首先，这个项目将研究失业工人如何讨论柯达对社会生活和当地景观的影响，以及他们如何理解成像技术和全球经济的变化，这些变化导致了柯达的衰落。其次，通过与工人、公共卫生专家和环保人士的接触，该项目将探索改变区域生态的工业化学和废物管理实践。研究人员将在罗切斯特进行24个月的实地研究，采用各种社会科学方法，包括参与观察、访谈、口述历史、家谱、档案研究，并与当地科学家和其他专家合作。这项研究涉及人类学中长期存在的和新兴的问题，如大规模的经济转型，人与环境之间的关系，以及媒体的研究。本研究的结果将有助于对美国去工业化的定性理解。通过在详细的传记和政治历史中构建低级别员工的账户，本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。通过将其科学发现以易于理解的视觉和叙事形式呈现给公众，这项研究将为参与环境问题提供工具和数据。

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.