Doctoral Dissertation Research: Measuring Variation in Water Pollution Impacts and Water Insecurity Infrastructures Across Socioeconomic Status

虽然研究一直表明，作为一个整体，贫穷社区往往承担与环境污染有关的大多数负面后果，但人们对共同环境来源的污染是否因阶级而沿着不同，以及如果是这样，在多大程度上有不同的认识。这项研究发生在一个城市景观中，中产阶级和下层居民都受到水污染的影响。该项目将在科学文化人类学方面培训一名研究生，其成果将传播给学术界和非学术界的受众。该项目还扩大了历史上代表性不足的群体对科学知识生产的参与。调查结果将通过公共媒体渠道和照片之声展览以及向参与研究的主要利益攸关方提供的非学术报告向更广泛的公众传播。该项目通过测量上层阶级、封闭社区和低收入居民居住的非正式住区的比较样本的差异来审查对环境污染的看法。它还调查了不同社会群体和个人制定的基础设施，工具和行为机制，以了解人与环境相互作用的复杂性。在本质上，本研究采用了传统的民族志方法，如半结构化访谈和参与观察，以及非传统的技术，如步行采访和photovoice。该项目对城市政治生态学、水不安全理论、环境研究以及地理学和人类学领域的广泛不平等做出了重要贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While research has consistently shown how poorer communities as an aggregate tend to bear with the most of negative consequences associated with environmental pollution, less is understood about whether pollution from a common environmental source is differentially experienced along class lines, and if so, to what extent. This research takes place in an urban landscape where both middle- and lower- class residents are impacted by water pollution. The project would train a graduate student in scientific cultural anthropology and its results would be disseminated to academic and non-academic audiences. The project also broadens the participation of historically underrepresented groups in the production of scientific knowledge. The findings will be disseminated to the broader public through public media channels and a photovoice exhibit, as well as non-academic reports to the main stakeholders involved in the study.This project examines perceptions of environmental pollution by measuring variation across a comparative sample of upper-class, gated communities, and informal settlements where lower-income residents live. It also investigates the infrastructures, tools, and behavioral mechanisms enacted by different social groups and individuals to understand the complexities of human-environment interaction. Comparative in nature, this research employs conventional ethnographic methods like semi-structured interviews and participant observation, as well as nontraditional techniques such as walking interviews and photovoice. The project makes important contributions to urban political ecology, theories of water insecurity, and environmental studies and inequality broadly within the fields of geography and anthropology.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.