Another Angle on Pollution Experience: Toward an Anthropology of the Emotional Ecology of Risk Mitigation

Little, Peter C.

doi:10.1111/j.1548-1352.2012.01269.x

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Another methodological gap is the relatively low number of ethnographic accounts of cleanup experiences. One exception is Little's (2012) study of people living with vapor mitigation systems installed in their houses as part of remediation of the IBM Endicott Superfund site in New York state. Ethnographic studies of cleanup workers, community activists, and agency staff would shed light on social relationships, cultural worldviews, decision-making, and health.…”

Section: Trends In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

How clean is clean: a review of the social science of environmental cleanups

Maxwell

Kiessling

Buckley

2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Environmental cleanup may involve decontaminating an area affected by a radiological release, containing an oil spill, or remediating a Superfund site or brownfield. It is a key component of how environmental agencies work to protect public health and the environment. There are many publications on technical protocols for cleanup and waste disposal. Additionally, there has been much social science work on the social problems of environmental contamination. However, social science research on cleanup itself has been much more scattered across disciplines and incidents. To date, there has not been a comprehensive review of the social factors that affect cleanup processes and outcomes. Such social factors may include cultural worldviews that shape stakeholder perspectives on 'how clean is clean' and social relationships among stakeholders. This article fills this gap by providing an interdisciplinary literature review of the social science of environmental cleanup. Three principal themes emerged from the 97 articles that met selection criteria: effects on cleanup worker health, public engagement and decision-making, and societal benefits of cleaned-up sites. The review points to areas where further research is needed. For example, there is a lack of mixed methods and interdisciplinary engagement within the literature. Additionally, few articles compare cleanup situations. There is also a need for further investigation into specific social science topics such as labor practices, gender, race, and power relationships. To address these gaps, we argue for the development of a comprehensive framework or model as well as the exploration of broader questions complicating cleanups. Overall, this area of research has significant potential to benefit environmental cleanup policy and practice worldwide, while advancing social theory about people and the environment.

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Section: Trends In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

How clean is clean: a review of the social science of environmental cleanups

Maxwell

Kiessling

Buckley

2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Crown Court’s attempt to rehabilitate the image of urban MHCs hinged on changing non‐residents’ unfavorable opinions, but depicting existing park conditions as unmanageable and dangerous has justified MHC closure and redevelopment for decades. This common attitude is illustrated in the following comments from one legislative staffer whose district includes Crown Court: “Based on my, I don’t know, bigotry or whatever … I’ve always seen these areas as nothing but poor, white trash.” Such perspectives ignore historic precedent and municipal liability for regulating private, for‐profit MHCs and instead emplace mobile‐homeowners in specific spatial contexts where the cultural toxicity of “trashy” parks contaminates the moral character of its residents (see Petryna ; Little ). In other words, these beliefs reduce mobile home parks to containment zones for unwanted housing (trailers) and people (trailer trash).…”

Section: Blighted and Substandardmentioning

confidence: 99%

This Land is My Land: Absence and Ruination in the American Dream of (Mobile) Homeownership

Formanack

2018

City & Society

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Manufactured homes occupy a unique space in the American sociopolitical landscape. Colloquially referred to as “mobile homes” or “trailers,” manufactured housing’s ambiguous social, legal, and financial categorization produces continuous displacement pressure for millions of mobile‐homeowners living in for‐profit mobile home communities (MHCs). This article examines the consequences of mobile‐homeowner disparagement as “trailer trash” through the case study of Isabel, a mobile‐homeowner whose twofold eviction—of both owner and home—was justified based on her possession of socially undesirable (mobile) housing. Drawing on fieldwork in urban MHCs from 2011 to 2016, this article reconstructs Isabel’s story via the materiality of eviction and demonstrates a methodology for urban ethnographers who encounter displacement after the fact. Whereas corporate and municipal narratives attempt to delegitimize mobile home residents as “not quite” homeowners, reintroducing Isabel as an absent subject illustrates how potent sociocultural disdain produces, and even anticipates, the material ruination of “trailer trash.” [Housing; United States; Absence; Materiality; Ruination; Mobile Homes]

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“…In this sense, these exclusion zones are spaces of sovereign exception, where different rules and laws are enacted to protect the rest of society from invisible radiation (Davies & Polese, ). Such exclusion zones have parallels with other polluted geographies, including “mitigation landscapes” (Little, ) or “sacrifice zones” (Lerner, ), where certain places (and people) are rendered disposable and “wasted” for the greater good (Bauman, ). The designation and zoning of places as contaminated and obsolete have direct consequences for inhabitants of these exceptional geographies.…”

Section: Zonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards nuclear geography: Zones, bodies, and communities

Alexis‐Martin

Davies

2017

Geography Compass

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Since the discovery of radioactivity in 1895, ionising radiation has become an increasingly prominent part of modern life. Here, we explore the diverse modes of interaction that occur between bodies and nuclear technology and point towards the scope for further research on nuclear geographies. We bring together different strands of this nascent discipline and, by doing so, highlight how nuclear technology interacts across a spectrum of geographic scales, communities, and bodies. Although nuclear geographies can be sensational and exceptionalising, such as the experiences of nuclear accident survivors and the creation of "exclusion zones," they can also be mundane, everyday and largely unrecognised, such as the production of nuclear energy and the life-giving nature of radioactive medicine. To frame our discussion, we take three cuts at nuclear geography, highlighting the importance of zones, bodies, and communities. By discussing this gamut of spaces and societies created through ionising radiation, we open the way for more research into the cross section of benefits, challenges, and social phenomena that arise, as we coexist with nuclear technology.

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Another Angle on Pollution Experience: Toward an Anthropology of the Emotional Ecology of Risk Mitigation

Cited by 23 publications

References 43 publications

How clean is clean: a review of the social science of environmental cleanups

How clean is clean: a review of the social science of environmental cleanups

This Land is My Land: Absence and Ruination in the American Dream of (Mobile) Homeownership

Towards nuclear geography: Zones, bodies, and communities

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