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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how communities living near cement plants in Pakistan experience health impacts from long-term dust exposure. Using ethnographic research and expert triangulation, it explores the limits of environmental governance and care.

Paper long abstract

Industrial development is frequently framed as a pathway to economic growth and resilient futures. Yet for communities living near heavy industry, resilience often reveals the limits of environmental care and health protection. This paper draws on a comparative ethnographic study conducted in six communities near cement plants across three provinces of Pakistan. Through in-depth interviews, community workshops, and expert consultations, it examines how residents experience and interpret the health consequences of prolonged exposure to industrial dust emissions. Participants described respiratory illnesses, persistent dust accumulation inside homes, contamination of water sources, and declining agricultural productivity. These accounts were triangulated with expert assessments and available monitoring data to explore how pollution risks are recognized, measured, and governed. The analysis reveals tensions between lived experience and formal regulatory systems, particularly in air quality monitoring, complaint mechanisms, and enforcement practices. Concerns about unequal employment access and limited institutional responsiveness further expose the uneven distribution of industrial benefits and burdens. By foregrounding everyday experiences of exposure, the paper argues that prevailing models of industrial resilience obscure structural inequalities and the practical limits of regulatory care. It calls for environmental accountability frameworks that integrate community knowledge and prioritize health equity within industrial governance.