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- Convenors:
-
Celia Mir-Alvarez
(Cermes3, Université Paris Cité)
Justyna Moizard-Lanvin (Université Paris Cité)
Khadim MBOW (Paris City university)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
Environmental exposures pose a global health risk, especially across the Global South. This panel aims to explore the actors, decisions, and infrastructure involved in the environmental (health) data-production process in this part of the world, and its effect on public (in)action.
Long Abstract:
High levels of air pollution, contaminated waters and soils, and other environmental exposures pose an alarming global health risk. This is particularly the case in the Global South, where poorly regulated industries, unprecedented growth and expansion of urban areas, increased vehicle ownership, and other polluting activities are on the rise – often with little to no oversight. In this context, national and local governments, many times in collaboration with bilateral and transnational actors (the World Bank, WHO, UNEP, among others), are attempting to quantify the extent and intensity of this pollution to estimate damages on health, the environment, the economy, and overall development. This step is often deemed as necessary before setting recommendations, strengthening regulatory frameworks, or implementing policy actions. Yet who, exactly, produces this data? Who owns and governs it? How is it treated, analyzed, transformed, and put to use? What markets and companies – often from third-party countries or organizations – intervene in the process? Who maintains, or cares for, this data-producing infrastructure? What place do public health officials (and their data) occupy? What are the outcomes for the populations living in affected areas? What data-production movements are emerging “from below” by citizens and activists?
This panel aims to explore the different ways in which environmental exposures are apprehended, managed, and measured across the Global South. This includes the production of scientific knowledge and guidelines by local or foreign actors and the establishment of environmental (health) monitoring or surveillance networks, among others. Studies of citizen-led strategies to measure environmental exposures are also encouraged. Proposals should put the data-producing process in a critical light and question the effect this form of “making and doing” has on public (in)action in low- and middle-income countries. Case studies can include urban, peri-urban (ex. industrial sites) or rural areas.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Bertrand Lefebvre (French Institute of Pondicherry) Vera Verheijen (Maastricht University) Eva Pilot (Maastricht University) Madhura Joglekar (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research)
Long abstract:
Urbanization, rapid industrialization, and inadequate environmental regulations contribute to high levels of air pollutants in global south cities. Addressing air pollution in these cities requires the development and expansion of air quality monitoring networks to provide adequate information on the level of air pollution to decision-makers and citizen and has been central to many air quality policies in global south countries. With new paradigms and technologies emerging in air pollution monitoring, the last decade has witnessed some rapid changes in the production and dissemination of air quality data in global south cities.
We present contrasting perspectives based on extensive literature reviews and interviews with stakeholders, examining the expansion of air quality surveillance in Pune, India. This reflection sheds light on the challenges and opportunities facing air quality monitoring in the context of global south cities. International and central government initiatives to improve air quality surveillance have found a favorable local environment in Pune as the city hosts a robust network of research institutions in air pollution monitoring and allied sciences. Simultaneously, a network of environmental activists has also pushed forward the issue of air pollution on the agenda of local governing bodies ensuring that the issue of air quality data monitoring was not restricted to experts and regulatory bodies.
The proliferation of stakeholders and monitoring networks has resulted in a fragmentation of data production, creating a challenge in integrating information and concerns about quality of the data produced.
Celia Mir-Alvarez (Cermes3, Université Paris Cité)
Long abstract:
Urban air pollution is a severe global health problem, particularly in the Global South where 90% of air pollution mortality is concentrated. This presentation aims to question the decades-old and ever-growing calls for more and better air quality data in the South by international organizations and the Global North by showing how these appeals are adopted in local contexts. This will be done through the study of air quality infrastructure in Morocco.
This lower-middle income country constitutes a relevant case study given that it has been monitoring air quality for over two decades. The fixed air quality monitoring stations – particularly the “boxes” sheltering and enclosing costly sensors and analyzers – deployed across the country’s major cities are key elements of Morocco’s air quality management strategy. These “boxes” serve as a “cloak” to conceal the unmaintained monitoring equipment housed inside and their presence is also used as “proof” by the state that air pollution is being addressed. Air quality data is deemed necessary to study health impacts, but both air quality and health data are notably absent from public circulation despite the existence of this infrastructure.
Data was collected through literature review and two fieldwork visits during which over 70 semi-structured interviews with institutional actors, researchers, and activists, among others, were conducted. Findings are presented as part of an ongoing STS PhD research and within the framework of the Globalsmog project, a research initiative that aims to study the persistence of urban air pollution in cities across the Global South.
Felipe Araneda Ávila (University of Cambridge)
Long abstract:
Digital restoration platforms have gained increasing traction as crucial tools for environmental governance and climate change mitigation. Despite their importance in addressing environmental issues, the academic literature on how these technologies are changing local ecosystems is still scant. This lack of empirical evidence is even more prominent in countries from the Global South such as Chile, which has a history of neoliberal conservation undertaken by non-governmental actors, while in recent years, different digital platforms are further reconstituting its conservation and restoration practices.
Here, two restoration platforms are worth mentioning: Lemu and Restor. The former is a restoration platform app developed by a Chilean start-up with the same name, which besides providing different affordances (multi-data layers, 3D models, and key ecosystem and biodiversity data), it also gives the opportunity to its users to provide financial support to different environmental initiatives. The latter is a non-profit environmental platform which has been co-developed by ETH Zurich and Google in order to enhance transparency and connectivity for conservation initiatives worldwide, as well as displaying different conservation projects which are willing to receive monetary donations.
Building on the literature of political ecology, digital sociology, and STS, my aim is to explore how the environmental data generated by these digital platforms is influencing the environmental conservation landscape in Chile, with a focus on Chilean Patagonia. By doing that, I want to inquire about how environmental data infrastructures are funded, who controls the generated data, and with what purposes that data is collected.
Veena Vijayan A. V. (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Long abstract:
As a discourse which challenged the central dogma of molecular biology and its narrow understanding of gene expression as a unidirectional flow of information from the DNA to proteins, epigenetics in recent years has emerged as a system of knowledge production which incorporated environmental factors, lifestyle choices, and social conditions in understanding human beings at a molecular level.
India has become a significant contributor to epigenetics research, with numerous research institutions and scientists actively studying epigenetic mechanisms. These studies have shed light on various aspects, including the impact of pollution on human health, climate change, conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, and urbanisation, and the knowledge produced had a crucial role in understanding the complex interactions between the environment and human health.
The paper argues that the understanding of the human genome as a vast reactive system which is in constant communication with the environment and susceptible to heritable epigenetic mutations depending on the quality of the air, water, food and other environmental factors, the protection of the environment has become central to the survival of human beings as species in a molecular sense.
Scholars who work in science and technology studies and medical anthropology around the globe have extensively looked into the potential of this emerging field of study and its social implications. This paper attempts to contextualise these global debates based on the scientific literature produced in India in the field of environmental epigenetics over the last ten years.