Technoscience and Environmental Justice bookcover

Technoscience and Environmental Justice

Expert Cultures in a Grassroots Movement

Kim Fortun 

(Afterword by)

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Description

Case studies exploring how experts' encounters with environmental justice are changing technical and scientific practice.

Over the course of nearly thirty years, the environmental justice movement has changed the politics of environmental activism and influenced environmental policy. In the process, it has turned the attention of environmental activists and regulatory agencies to issues of pollution, toxics, and human health as they affect ordinary people, especially people of color. This book argues that the environmental justice movement has also begun to transform science and engineering. The chapters present case studies of technical experts' encounters with environmental justice activists and issues, exploring the transformative potential of these interactions.

Technoscience and Environmental Justice first examines the scientific practices and identities of technical experts who work with environmental justice organizations, whether by becoming activists themselves or by sharing scientific information with communities. It then explore scientists' and engineers' activities in such mainstream scientific institutions as regulatory agencies and universities, where environmental justice concerns have been (partially) institutionalized as a response to environmental justice activism. All of the chapters grapple with the difficulty of transformation that experts face, but the studies also show how environmental justice activism has created opportunities for changing technical practices and, in a few cases, has even accomplished significant transformations.

Product Details

PublisherMIT Press
Publish DateSeptember 02, 2011
Pages312
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9780262516181
Dimensions9.0 X 6.0 X 0.7 inches | 0.9 pounds

About the Author

Gwen Ottinger is Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program at University of Washington- Bothell.
Benjamin Cohen is Assistant Professor at Lafayette College and the author of Notes from the Ground: Science, Soil, and Society in the American Countryside.

Reviews

Technoscience and Environmental Justice helps demonstrate that our scientific practices are always changing and can be brought into useful alignment with citizens and society while still contributing to the development of a more robust scientific understanding of the world.

--Chemical Heritage Magazine

...collection shows how confronting structural inequities through community-based projects can achieve transformative political change.

--Choice

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