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，较贫穷的社区往往会承受与环境污染相关的大部分负面后果，但对于来自同一环境来源的污染是否在阶级界限上存在差异，如果是，程度如何，人们了解较少。这项研究发生在一个中下层居民都受到水污染影响的城市景观中。该项目将培训一名科学文化人类学研究生，其成果将向学术界和非学术界受众传播。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。这些发现将通过公共媒体渠道和PhotoVoice展览向更广泛的公众传播，以及向参与研究的主要利益相关者发布非学术报告。该项目通过测量上层社会、封闭式社区和低收入居民居住的非正式住区的比较样本，检查人们对环境污染的看法。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。在比较性质上，本研究使用了传统的人种学方法，如半结构化访谈和参与者观察，以及非传统技术，如步行访谈和照片语音。该项目在地理和人类学领域对城市政治生态、水不安全理论、环境研究和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。

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.