Analyze

Emerging technologies are increasingly being sought as interventions to intractable environmental and public health issues that promise to intensify on our warming planet. Genetically engineered mosquitoes could curb the impacts of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue. Solar geoengineering could use cloud thinning or aerosol scattering to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet. Adequate regulatory and governance mechanisms do not yet exist for these technologies, the impacts of which span international boundaries, and have the power to irreversibly alter environments. There is wide recognition from national and international bodies that decision-making processes surrounding these technologies must engage local and Indigenous communities whose lands and resources would be impacted by their trial and deployment. In response, public, community, and stakeholder “engagement” has taken center stage in the discourse on emerging environmental technology governance. Scientists and technologists are now compelled to engage publics and communities, as they recognize that some form of engagement or authorization will be requisite to the application of their technologies outside the laboratory. The language of participatory engagement abounds in scientific and governance literature on environmental technologies. These texts espouse the importance of co-design, relationship-building, shared decision-making, and mutual learning, and recognize the uneven power relations in which environmental decisions have historically been made. Yet, emergent practices of engagement leave much to be desired in terms of realizing their stated aspirations. Deficit model approaches frame publics and communities primarily as “lay people” needing to be educated before weighing in on decisions. In my fieldwork on one Pacific island where genetically modified mosquitoes are being considered for endangered bird conservation, I observed a focus group in a market research firm in which local and Indigenous residents were tested on their knowledge of invasive species biology and asked to rank radio advertisements and slogans about the modified mosquitoes. The conflation of engagement with marketing strategies and public relations campaigns prioritize the management of public perception over genuine dialogue or mutual learning. In theory, all the interest in engagement promises to open up meaningful possibilities for local and Indigenous communities to realize their rights to self-determination. In practice, strategic and instrumental approaches instead subdue opposition and manufacture consent. Legal mechanisms are needed to codify Indigenous rights in decision-making processes. Alternative approaches are needed that widen the focus beyond a single technofix to let communities define environmental challenges and collectively imagine solutions. Opposition should be read not as a barrier but as a generative site for inquiry, as often it is not the technology itself being refused but the exclusionary processes that surround its use. The most just solutions are likely to emerge from those very refusals. 

Taitingfong, Riley. 2023. "It’s all talk: how community engagement is failing in environmental technology governance." 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.

I bring visual and graphic expertise, good organization skills, focus on pedagogical issues;

We need social media skills, organizational skills, community organizing skills, expertise on environmental research; teaching;

The policy is the IAEA: Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident. Written in 1986, it aimed to create an international system for reporting a nuclear accident, transferring vital information from the source to those who would need it to facilitate effective emergency response.

The convention was drafted and signed at a special meeting of the IAEA that took place 5 months after the Chernobyl Disaster. No one author or author country could be determined based on the document.

This policy applies internationally, to 119 states who were subject to it after the entry to force date. 69 states signed the convention at the IAEA special meeting in 1986.

This policy was created as a direct response to the Chernobyl Disaster. An interesing historical note is that the USSR and the Ukranian SSR were among the 69 states that signed the convention at the 1986 meeting, and both quickly ratified it afterward. 

By establishing for effective communication of information regarding a nuclear accident to other states which could be effected by it, and creating policies for the transfer of information, the convention addresses public health by giving goverments access to the information needed to respond to a nuclear disaster from abroad. 

This policy doesn't specifically address the needs of vulnerable popluations. 

This policy would help provide first responders and technical professionals with specific information on a nuclear emergency from a forign source which they could be responding to. This information could allow them to more effectively mitigate the effects of such a disaster.