DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Breathing Uncertainty: Risk, Exposure, and Air Pollution Management in Mongolia's Capital City

本论文的研究项目将研究城市居民如何发展，争议和部署与空气污染控制互动的风险知识在乌兰巴托，蒙古最大的城市。该项目的重点是对新的空气质量监测设备和节能炉灶技术进行巨额投资。这项投资是工业、国家和公民长期持续承诺的一部分，旨在改善乌兰巴托的城市生活条件，那里的污染物水平远远超过国际可接受的标准。本项目将从人种学角度探讨以下两个研究问题。专家如何与空气污染缓解技术互动，以产生有关风险和暴露的知识？作为新炉灶技术的接受者，最容易受到空气污染影响的公民如何产生关于风险的想法？调查员将与科学家和项目协调员分享具体的调查结果，以帮助改进技术方法，并在科学领域、私营部门和贫民窟社区之间建立更强有力的伙伴关系。她还将举办讲座，开发课程材料，并在会议和公共活动中发表演讲，以激励未来几代城市环境健康领域的当地学者。最后，她将分享她的研究成果，以帮助地区社区参与到如何保护他们的健康免受空气污染暴露的知情决策中。技术总结这项研究将技术与风险形成的社会过程进行对话。该项目的目标是使医学人类学能够更好地了解小型技术的涌入如何与全球卫生的持续私有化交织在一起。该项目还将通过调查特定地点和风险构建过程来加强社会科学中的风险概念，并将提供关于全球环境健康干预措施如何影响脆弱城市社区的丰富人种学描述。为了实现这些目标，调查人员将在乌兰巴托的炉灶更换计划完成一个完整周期后进行为期12个月的研究。与其他关于风险和环境危害的研究不同，本研究将阐明风险是如何构建的，营销，并通过与参与干预的关键科学家，私营公司和贫民窟居民接触，将日常生活的微观政治与宏观过程联系起来。通过突出科学进程的日常做法、节能炉灶的营销以及贫民窟社区的日常经验，该项目还将成为技术如何改变全球卫生状况的重要案例研究。

General Audience Summary This dissertation research project will examine how urban residents develop, dispute and deploy knowledge about risk in interaction with air pollution controls In Ulaanbaatar, the largest city in Mongolia. The project focuses of on a colossal investment in new air quality surveillance devices and fuel-efficient stove technologies. The investment is a part of a long term, sustained commitment by industry, the state, and citizens to improve urban living conditions in Ulaanbaatar, where pollutant levels are far beyond internationally acceptable standards. This project will ethnographically examine the following two research questions. How do experts interact with air pollution mitigation technologies to produce knowledge about risk and exposure? As recipients of new stove technologies, how do citizens who are most vulnerable to air pollution produce ideas about risk? The investigator will share specific findings with scientists and project coordinators to help improve both technical methods and to foster stronger partnerships among scientific fields, the private sector, and slum communities. She will also give lectures, develop curriculum materials, and give conference and public-event presentations to inspire future generations of local scholars in the field of urban environmental health. Finally, she will share her research findings to help district communities to engage citizens in making informed decisions about how to protect their health against air pollution exposure.Technical Summary This research puts technologies in dialogue with the social processes of risk formation. The goal of the project is to expand enable medical anthropology to better understand how the influx of small-scale technologies is intertwined with the ongoing privatization of global health. The project will also enhance the concept of risk in social science by investigating specific sites and processes of risk construction, and it will provide a rich ethnographic account of how global environmental health interventions affect vulnerable, urban communities.To meet these goals the investigator will conduct research for 12 months following one full cycle of the stove-replacement program in Ulaanbaatar. Unlike other studies on risk and environmental hazards, this study will illuminate how risk is constructed, marketed, and experienced by connecting the micro-politics of everyday life with macro-scale process by engaging with key scientists, private companies and slum residents involved in the intervention. By highlighting the everyday practices of the scientific process, marketing of energy-efficient stoves, and daily experiences of slum communities, this project will also serve as an important case study of how technologies are changing the landscape of global health.