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4 Environmental injustice in North Carolina’s hog industry: Lessons learned from community- driven participatory research and the “people’s professor” Sarah Rhodes and KD Brown, Larry Cooper, Naeema Muhammad, and Devon Hall A vignette of life in hog country Imagine a house. This house may have been owned by your family for generations or is one that you worked very hard to purchase. Now imagine that, unbeknownst to you, an industrial hog operation1 with over 5,000 hogs and a football field-sized waste pit containing hog feces and urine has been permitted by the
This book examines the relationship between environmental justice and citizen science, focusing on enduring issues and new challenges in a post-truth age. Debates over science, facts, and values have always been pivotal within environmental justice struggles. For decades, environmental justice activists have campaigned against the misuses of science, while at the same time engaging in community-led citizen science. However, post-truth politics has threatened science itself. This book makes the case for the importance of science, knowledge, and data that are produced by and for ordinary people living with environmental risks and hazards. The international, interdisciplinary contributions range from grassroots environmental justice struggles in American hog country and contaminated indigenous communities, to local environmental controversies in Spain and China, to questions about “knowledge justice,” citizenship, participation, and data in citizen science surrounding toxicity. The book features inspiring studies of community-based participatory environmental health and justice research; different ways of sensing, witnessing, and interpreting environmental injustice; political strategies for seeking environmental justice; and ways of expanding the concepts and forms of engagement of citizen science around the world. While the book will be of critical interest to specialists in social and environmental sciences, it will also be accessible to graduate and postgraduate audiences. More broadly, the book will appeal to members of the public interested in social justice issues, as well as community members who are thinking about participating in citizen science and activism. Toxic Truths includes distinguished contributing authors in the field of environmental justice, alongside cutting-edge research from emerging scholars and community activists.
certain fundamental ecological concepts – including the centrality of place to human identity and an awareness of ‘environmental injustice’, the idea that colourless, polluted, toxic physical surroundings both mirror and help constitute equivalent urban, social conditions (e.g. slum housing or ill health), leaving some people victim to a disproportionate impact from environmental hazards. Lastly, it will be argued that punk developed aesthetic forms ideally placed to articulate environmental injustice, forms epitomised and extended by John Cooper Clarke. His work is
Introduction: Tackling environmental injustice in a post-truth age Thom Davies and Alice Mah It is difficult to make sense of a historical moment when you are caught in the middle of it – and difficult to tell if it even is a moment, or just a small part of something far bigger. Over the past few years we have witnessed rising authoritarianism, extreme weather events attributed to climate change, the fallout from political populism, and – as this book goes to print – a global pandemic. In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary made post-truth its word of the
work focused on “citizen–expert alliances” in Cancer Alley, the infamous petrochemical corridor of environmental injustice in Louisiana (Allen 2003). Allen brings her experience in the USA of working with citizens, experts, scientists, and CBPEH methodologies (alongside epidemiologist Alison Cohen, who worked on CBPEH with environmental justice communities in California) to develop an “extreme” or “strongly participatory” form of citizen science in France. As Allen explains in her chapter: “Strongly participatory science is knowledge-making that is collaborative all
13 Science, citizens, and air pollution: Constructing environmental (in)justice Anneleen Kenis Introduction In their efforts to put air pollution on the public agenda, citizens cannot avoid engaging with science. Being a largely invisible socio-natural artifact, air has to be translated into a subject of contestation and debate for it to become politically salient. Which choices do citizen movements make during this process and what effect do these choices have on particular constructions of environmental (in)justice? To formulate an answer to these questions
their own stories about pollution using publicly generated science. Noise, ozone, oil, chemical, nuclear, water, and air pollution have all been monitored through citizen science campaigns, with cheap particle sensors, DIY devices, and open-source hardware allowing volunteers to provide new nar- DAVIES & MAH 9781526137029 PRINT.indd 238 08/06/2020 15:32 Introduction to Part IV 239 ratives about environmental injustice, using their own data. Famous examples of citizen science include the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, who used simple “bucket samples” of polluted air
world, the methodologies and strategies for addressing these problems are fragmented (see Pasetto and Iavarone, this volume). While there are systemic patterns of environmental injustice around the world, the social and political dynamics of interests, values, and actions are different in each case. These chapters highlight the political dilemmas of engaging with science for seeking environmental justice in different contexts in Spain, Italy, and China. In particular, the authors explore the challenges of addressing knowledge gaps about environmental health data
instead of DAVIES & MAH 9781526137029 PRINT.indd 121 08/06/2020 15:32 122 Sensing and witnessing injustice creating “data” about pollution, it creates a story, exposing environmental injustice as viscous, fetid, and unmissibly there. The challenge of making pollution present is also taken up by Peter C. Little and Marina Da Silva, who both focus on visual dimensions of pollution. Little takes us to one of the world’s largest e-waste dumps, in Agbogbloshie, a district in Accra, the capital of Ghana. He explores how workers who recycle e-waste in this vibrant
aspects of the research process is shared with community partners. Goals of CBPR projects include increased community engagement in research to generate more accurate scientific knowledge, improved public trust and understanding of environmental DAVIES & MAH 9781526137029 PRINT.indd 42 08/06/2020 15:32 Toxic trespass 43 health science, utilization of culturally and socially appropriate interventions, improved public health decisions, policy changes, and reductions in environmental injustice (O’Fallon and Dearry 2002; Wallerstein et al. 2017). Silent Spring