Analyze

Climbing this "disposal" cell was the main event of our guided tour of the Weldon Spring's Interpretive Center. It represents the "finished product" of the toxic waste clean up project and Legacy Management site. Engineered and constructed with 8 layers of strategically chosen materials, the cell is expected to "deter the migration of [its] contaminants" for up to 1000 years. Thus, it is really more of a storage cell than a disposal cell...

Some of the questions coming from our group concerned the criteria of assessment used to determine the cell's long term durability and functionality. For instance, the cell was designed to control and treat leachate--water that has become contaminated from seeping through the cell--but this capacity has its limits. Though the cell has been designed to handle well-over the historical record of rainfall in the area, climate change has rendered history an ineffective means of predicting the severity of weather in the future.

Another concern is the transfer of knowledge about the cell and its toxic contents. How do we make sure no one opens it up (or blows it up) over the course of 1000 years? The strategy of the DOE is to monitor the cell by testing the local area for contaminants, maintaining strict military surveillance over the area, and by using the interpretive center to educate tourists and the local community about the cell, i.e. Legacy Management. But the US federal government's (or any institution's) ability to keep this up for 1000 years is obviously questionable, at the very best. What is certain here is that, by managing nuclear waste, with its inhuman time scales and the correlate amplification of complexity, we are venturing into uncharted waters. The DOE wants to create the impression that everything is under control and it may be, for the time being. It is also reasonable to take pains not to incite widespread fear and panic. But it is similarly important to recognize that we, in this moment, simply cannot be in control over 1000 years of possibility.

I think the field campus was a great success and showed how it differs from or compliments traditional formats (conferences, workshops, lectures...). The schedule was deliberately intense, but I am glad we could keep up a good pace throughout the three days. However, I agree that shared time to reflect on what we saw and heard each would have been helpful. A lot of this happened in the cars and at the two accommodations, but more collective time would be great for a future campus. On our way back, we discussed several ways to structure such discussions, for example by picking up one of the twelve analytic questions or making an inventory of (types of) people we encountered in the field. I am also interested in what people with experience in doing ethnography thought about showing up at sites in a group vs. being the lone fieldworker, and how that shifted the way you asked questions or interacted with the sites.

In that regard, I found it particularly helpful to meet participants in advance during the Zoom calls and learn about their skills/interests.  The group interview with Tony West was also a great way to prepare not only for the first day but to get a sense of St. Louis as a place. We should definitely think about similar modes to prepare for New Orleans. Also, since I was involved with setting up the final exhibition a GCADD, I am looking forward to discussing more what the exhibit at 4S could look like and what those of you with a background in the arts think about it.

I am working on a digital collection for the quotidian anthropocene theme "civic infrastructure". I am especially interested in free software, open data, digital maps, and other related forms of participation that are either a direct response to the anthropocene or help to render it visible in different ways.

http://disaster-sts-network.org/users/tim-schutz

I will develop a digital presentation of Philadelphia quotidian anthropence and on the theme of climate change adaptation. I will be using this analytic, "Profiling a Climate Policy", which I've created to assess urban adaptation plans. I'll provide more details by next Wednesday April 3rd.

http://disaster-sts-network.org/users/alison-kenner

http://disaster-sts-network.org/user

For me personally, I think the campus was a valuable exercise in learning to think on my feet. Also, if one of the goals of the field campus was to “generate more data than the investigator is aware of at the time of collection,” as Marilyn Strathern has said of ethnography, I’d call it an assured success. The schedule, subject matter, and activities were notably intense, and certainly didn’t leave much room (or energy) for rigorous analysis in situ. So it seems to me that the ultimate value of the field campus is still in the process of production, as we all continue to process, discuss, and relate the significance of our experiences and interactions to our own research sites and areas of expertise over the course of the following months.

Perhaps this was simply a matter of being fresh energized, but I think Day 1 was the most productive and enjoyable. I also think this had to do with the way it was structured; e.g. beginning with Tony's primer, folllowed by the tours, and finally the panel discussion, the day just built up nicely. It also gave us an approachable sampling of the ways a coherent set of anthropocenic sites and practices had been differentially uncovered, recovered, or (more or less figuratively) covered up by diverse stakeholders. And we were given time to critically (if also (mostly) cordially) engage each set of stakeholders as a group, bringing in our own unique insights, questions, and interests.

I really enjoyed the first day’s higher degree of shared attention and designated time for Q&A and discussion. That’s not to say I think every event should be a group tour. Self-guided exploration is useful too, and I realize that part of the idea of splitting up was to facilitate smaller collaborations on diverse group projects. Still, perhaps setting aside a few sessions for group-wide Q&A with stakeholders each day would create that small bit of noise and contingency that helps generate creativity.

I will continue to build a digital collection on the quotidian anthropocene in Austin, Texas and will be contributing to a set of digital resources for exploring energy transition across sites.

The immersion into various spaces within St. Louis was incredibly insightful for rapid learning about the area's past, present, and imagined futures. What I think might have strengthened the field campus as a learning/thinking space would be to have slightly more structure in terms of explicitly creating shared analytical space--for instance, being more consistent with interrogating the space with the 12 scale questions (perhaps different groups could be assigned to paying special attention to a subset of those and then we could come together as a large group or as shuffled groups, i.e. a member from each subset) to discuss. Along those lines as well, I think creating specific times for reflecting and debriefing, either after a site visit or two or at the end of each day, would be an effective way to help translate massive amounts of observational data (so many of us listening/observing in each place!) into meaningful shared insights.

For future field schools I also think it would be important to think about accessibility, not just in terms of content (which is also an important question, since it seems we want to engage with folks across disciplines and beyond academia) but also in terms of format, so as to anticipate and/or be prepared to adjust to the needs of potential participants.