Analyze

The project "Researching Kaohsiung Archive: practice and reflection" is a collaborative effort with the UCI team addressing the global environmental injustice record in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, particularly focusing on the slow and accumulative harm caused by petrochemical development. Under the Environmental Injustice Global Record (EIGR) website, the Kaohsiung Archive serves as a trans-disciplinary platform for data archiving and communication. Since joining in 2021, the team has collected and visualized diverse data sources, engaging stakeholders in collaboration. The archive development involves addressing key questions related to environmental justice studies, fostering brainstorming and reflection. The project acts as a boundary object, connecting local and international communities, providing an information infrastructure for social dialogue,and aiming to contribute to a sustainable transformation discourse on the risks of petrochemical developments in Kaohsiung. The long-term impact on academic production method and knowledge dissemination remains to be seen, but the project aspires to inspire co-creation, cross-border cooperation,and innovation to empower civil society and enhance environmental justice governance.

The creation of the Kaohsiung Archive begins with a series of questions, utilizing the Environmental Justice (EJ) study framework applied to Hawaii as a guide. These questions delve into the influence of industries on environmental governance and advocacy, exploring the strategiesemployed. The process involves collaborative efforts to answer these questions, fostering brainstorming, debates, and reflections on characterizing the setting and revealing environmental injustice within the case study.

Following workshops and fieldwork in Kaohsiung, the project evolved to formulate narrative structures for mapping and visualizing environmental injustice in the region. Objectives include outlining Kaohsiung's features, focusing on petrochemical-related air pollution and industrial transformation issues, and designing relays to illustrate the challenges faced by fence-line communities and showcase potential action initiatives.

The project's progression involves tracking the issue, identifying and categorizing stakeholders, as well as gathering information and experiences from various parties. Stakeholder claims are sorted out, and efforts are made to find common action goals. Discursive risk analysis is conducted, examining environmental monitoring issues around petrochemical facilities. For instance, in Dashe, there is a focus on the discursive gaps between local residentsand petrochemical workers, revealing disparities in perceptions of air quality and expectations regarding governmental control.

Source

Tu, Wen Ling. 2023. " Researching Kaohsiung Archive: Practice and Reflection." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The project "Researching Kaohsiung Archive: practice and reflection" is a collaborative effort with the UCI team addressing the global environmental injustice record in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, particularly focusing on the slow and accumulative harm caused by petrochemical development. Under the Environmental Injustice Global Record (EIGR) website, the Kaohsiung Archive serves as a trans-disciplinary platform for data archiving and communication. Since joining in 2021, the team has collected and visualized diverse data sources, engaging stakeholders in collaboration. The archive development involves addressing key questions related to environmental justice studies, fostering brainstorming and reflection. The project acts as a boundary object, connecting local and international communities, providing an information infrastructure for social dialogue,and aiming to contribute to a sustainable transformation discourse on the risks of petrochemical developments in Kaohsiung. The long-term impact on academic production method and knowledge dissemination remains to be seen, but the project aspires to inspire co-creation, cross-border cooperation,and innovation to empower civil society and enhance environmental justice governance.

The creation of the Kaohsiung Archive begins with a series of questions, utilizing the Environmental Justice (EJ) study framework applied to Hawaii as a guide. These questions delve into the influence of industries on environmental governance and advocacy, exploring the strategiesemployed. The process involves collaborative efforts to answer these questions, fostering brainstorming, debates, and reflections on characterizing the setting and revealing environmental injustice within the case study.

Following workshops and fieldwork in Kaohsiung, the project evolved to formulate narrative structures for mapping and visualizing environmental injustice in the region. Objectives include outlining Kaohsiung's features, focusing on petrochemical-related air pollution and industrial transformation issues, and designing relays to illustrate the challenges faced by fence-line communities and showcase potential action initiatives.

The project's progression involves tracking the issue, identifying and categorizing stakeholders, as well as gathering information and experiences from various parties. Stakeholder claims are sorted out, and efforts are made to find common action goals. Discursive risk analysis is conducted, examining environmental monitoring issues around petrochemical facilities. For instance, in Dashe, there is a focus on the discursive gaps between local residentsand petrochemical workers, revealing disparities in perceptions of air quality and expectations regarding governmental control.

Tu, Wen Ling. 2023. " Researching Kaohsiung Archive: Practice and Reflection." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Truly bringing different “stakeholders” to the table - because the Rio event was very much taken over by the corporate green consultants

It seemed to be all about communications strategies - not necessarily ads but knowing how to handle media when something happens, oh and having those meetings where they set all the ground rules - so they agree to meet with activists but only on the corporation’s terms. Leveraging the UN stage - so signing charters and prominently displaying their messaging at the stage of a conference.

t seems like the consultants truly see the corporations as the victims here - the CEOs or the people in the companies who can get jail time for not putting appropriate audit systems in place or get trapped in complex legal monitoring requirements - they don’t seem to have a bit of sympathy for the victims or for the activists, who they see as “attacking” them.

There’s a little bit where the CEO of Union Carbide claims to be doing the “moral” not just strictly legal amount of help in the aftermath of Bhopal, given the Indian government’s ownership stake in the plant. 

Mostly responsibility is seen as a performance by the Green Consultants - because no matter how “good” you are you still get attacked by activists and the laws are too hard to follow and are designed to trip you up. So responsibility also becomes a pre-emptive offensive strategy - And Green Consultants try to get people within the corporation to see the political, financial investment, PR, etc. benefits that come with this performance of green. It’s necessary to perform “Transparency” [though it wasn’t called that yet, perhaps]- the house analogy. Like the case of ARCO - the somewhat green-er gas is celebrated and rakes in profits and maintains a car-based status-quo; and the explosions are not mentioned.

Taking over the definition of “sustainable development” and making this concept rational, ensuring that economic growth is no longer in opposition to environmental protection - “leading” by being a driver at a UN conference - work done by the “beyond blame” rhetorical trick of [weaponizing inclusion] - self-imposed audits, monitoring, and management tools which are then loudly communicated about, in addition to the participation in institutions that give outside credibility

After it’s clear an “it can’t happen here” approach won’t work, Green Consulting and Enviro-comms and harmonization of oppositions come into play- corporations listening to the different “customer-publics” and finding a way to meet what’s being asked for but on the corporation’s terms. Coming to the table to negotiate but never take demands. Pushing on their own definitions of these terms, especially sustainable development, and co-opting the movement so that environmentalism becomes corporate.

One of the main vulnerabilities that affect the community, is time and money. As the individuals have to wait for a long time, the report estimates that approximately 810,680 gallons of fuel is burned and wasted. This is a paramount issue with the rising cost of gas everyday. As many say, time is money. This relates to those stuck in these jams because these jams, along with large amounts of gas also wastes a lot of time. Motorists spend about 1.5 million hours annually sitting in traffic annually. In addition, $38 are wasted in those 1.5 million hours.