Scholars Award: Following the Residues of the Lead Industry

铅是一种有毒的重金属，由于数十年的含铅汽车尾气排放以及数百年的采矿和工业污染，铅分散在世界各地的院子、游乐场、公园和空地上。由于铅不会随着时间的推移而分解，因此将城市土壤修复到以前纯净或安全的基线条件可能是不可能的。鉴于这一挑战，科学家、决策者和受影响的社区如何尝试减少土壤铅造成的危害？该项目通过追踪四个在铅业中具有不同作用的地区的土壤铅残留来回答这些问题。主要目标是了解每个地区的人们如何创造关于土壤铅的知识，开发和推广减少暴露的方法，并改变发生铅暴露的社会和经济环境。通过在从铅矿到城市社区土壤的四个领域“跟踪化学物质”，该项目有可能影响环境政治和政策，提供新的方法来概念化全球铅残留问题，同时阐明在特定地区正在出现的可能的解决方案。其他更广泛的影响包括与城市园丁就铅暴露相关的危害进行沟通，发展学术和社区土壤研究人员和倡导者之间的联系，以及展示土壤科学和社会科学如何相互支持和相互启发。这是第一次对土壤铅作为一种普遍存在的残留物在全球范围内持续存在的分析。这个项目有助于科学和技术研究中关于污染环境中的生命的研究对话，在污染环境中，有毒污染及其后果往往躲避科学的担忧。此外，它扩大了历史学家和社会科学家的工作，他们对铅中毒和监管铅业的长期斗争的研究通常集中在单一地点。除了多个现场，这项研究还使用了多种方法：1)在历史和现在的铅开采和加工社区进行民族志田野调查；2)采访进行基于社区的土壤测试研究的科学家和活动家；3)分析关于铅开采、铅酸电池行业以及全球土壤中铅残留的其他历史和当代来源的文件；以及4)检查关于土壤铅暴露的科学文献和风险建模。这项研究还采用了一种新的研究方法--民族志土壤测试。通过采访城市园丁，同时合作测试他们的土壤中是否有铅的痕迹，人们如何看待自己暴露在铅的环境中，他们与社区环境历史的关系，以及在污染环境中的安全生活。该项目由SBE的科学和技术研究计划和ENG的环境工程计划联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Lead - a toxic heavy metal - is dispersed across yards, playgrounds, parks, and empty lots in cities around the world, the result of decades of leaded automobile emissions and centuries of mining and industrial pollution. Because lead does not break down over time, remediation of urban soils to some previously pure or safe baseline condition may be impossible. Given this challenge, how do scientists, decision-makers, and affected communities attempt to reduce the harms caused by soil lead? This project answers these questions by tracing soil lead residues in four regions with distinctive roles in the lead industry. The main goal is to understand how people in each area create knowledge about soil lead, develop and promote methods to reduce exposures, and change the social and economic circumstances in which lead exposures occur. By "following the chemical" across four areas, from lead mines to the soils of urban neighborhoods, this project has potential to affect environmental politics and policy, offering new ways to conceptualize the global problem of lead residues, while illuminating possible solutions that are emerging in particular locales. Other broader impacts include communicating with urban gardeners about the hazards associated with lead exposure, developing ties among academic and community-based soil researchers and advocates, and demonstrating how soil science and social science can mutually support and inform each other.This is the first sustained analysis of soil lead as a ubiquitous residue that continues to accrete around the globe. This project contributes to research conversations in science and technology studies about life in polluted environments, where toxic contamination and its consequences often evade scientific apprehension. Furthermore, it expands the work of historians and social scientists whose research on lead poisoning and the long struggle to regulate the lead industry has generally focused on single locations. In addition to multiple field sites, multiple methods are used in this study: 1) ethnographic fieldwork in historical and present-day lead mining and processing communities; 2) interviews of scientists and activists who conduct community-based soil testing research; 3) analysis of documents about lead mining, the lead-acid battery industry, and other historical and contemporary sources of lead residues in soils across the planet; and, 4) examination of the scientific literature and risk modeling about soil lead exposures. This study also deploys a novel research method called ethnographic soil testing. By interviewing urban gardeners while collaboratively testing their soil for traces of lead, insights are produced regarding how people think about their own exposures to lead, their relationships to the environmental histories of their communities, and living safely in contaminated environments.This project is jointly funded by the Science and Technology Studies program in SBE and Environmental Engineering Program in ENG.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.