Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Risk and Urban Governance

斯坦福大学研究生奥斯汀·G·泽德曼在詹姆斯·G·弗格森博士的指导下，将对风险在新兴城市治理形式中的作用进行文化人类学研究。与安全一样，风险最近作为一种政治理性和技术框架浮出水面，用来理解、安排和管理21世纪城市和城市生活的复杂性和不确定性。为了探索这一现象，这项研究提出了以下首要的研究问题：城市为什么、如何以及对风险问题产生了什么影响？这项研究将在哥伦比亚波哥大进行为期18个月的实地考察。20世纪90年代中期，波哥大市政府开始绘制城市空间中环境危害分布不均的地图。2003年，一个政府机构启动了一项重新安置方案，旨在重新安置生活在被定义为高风险地区的数千名低收入人口。为了了解这些新形式的风险管理如何在实践中发挥作用，研究人员将调查：1)波哥大计划如何塑造处于危险中的人的行为和前景；2)计划官员如何构思他们自己的工作；3)重新安置过程如何影响政府与公民之间的关系；以及4)风险如何以及为什么历史上成为一个政治问题。研究方法将结合制度民族志、案例研究和历史谱系学。这位研究人员将在搬迁现场办公室、处于危险之中的社区以及分散在全市各地的搬迁对象中进行研究。他将进行参与者观察，并在每个研究地点进行分层样本的半结构化深度访谈。他还将收集和分析指导安置计划的官方文件。这项研究很重要，因为在哥伦比亚研究的过程在世界范围内正变得越来越普遍，因为城市政府采取了保护弱势人口免受全球变暖、疾病流行和国家安全紧急情况等潜在威胁的新当务之急。这项研究将有助于科学地理解城市和社会在高度不确定时期正在改变的治理方式。该项目还有助于研究生的教育。

Stanford University graduate student Austin G. Zeiderman, working under the direction of Dr. James G. Ferguson, will undertake cultural anthropological research on the role of risk within emergent forms of urban governance. Alongside security, risk has recently surfaced as a political rationality and technical framework with which to understand, order, and manage the complexity and uncertainty of cities and urban life in the twenty-first century. To explore this phenomenon, this study poses the following overarching research question: Why, how, and to what effect are cities governing the problem of risk? The research will be carried out during 18 months of fieldwork in Bogotá, Colombia. In the mid-1990s, the municipal government of Bogotá began mapping the uneven distribution of environmental hazards across its urban space. In 2003, a governmental agency initiated a resettlement program aimed at relocating thousands of low-income populations living in areas defined as zones of high risk. To understand how these new forms of risk management work in practice, the researcher will investigate: 1) how the Bogotá program shapes the conduct and outlook of the people at risk; 2) how program officials conceive of their own work; 3) how the resettlement process affects the relation between government and citizens; and, 4) how and why risk emerged historically as a political problem. Research methods will combine institutional ethnography, case studies, and historical genealogy. The researcher will conduct his research in a relocation field office, in an at-risk neighborhood, and among the relocatees who have been dispersed throughout the city. He will do participant observation and conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews with a stratified sample at each study site. He also will collect and analyze official documents guiding the resettlement program. This research is important because the process to be studied in Colombia is becoming increasingly common world wide, as urban governments adopt the new imperative of protecting vulnerable populations from potential threats such as global warming, disease epidemics, and national security emergencies. This this research will contribute to a scientific understanding of changing ways in which cities and societies are being governed in times of heightened uncertainty. The project also contributes to the education of a graduate student.