Following the article, the author J. Kenens has published another paper "Changing perspectives: tracing the evolution of citizen radiation measuring organizations after Fukushima (2020)" DOI: 10.1051/radiopro/2020041 (link) that draws on the research on citizen science in Japan with a new focus on the comparison of their practices directly after the nuclear accident and today.
It is interesting to see how citizen science in Japan is enacted and how the concept of citizen science is dependent to the social and cultural context. Also looking at it not only from a top-down perspective, where universities or organizations are involved, but also the bottom-up perspective that includes only those practices that are done by citizens alone opens up a new space. As I am currently engaging with research on air pollution in different sites, I could build from this text in considering the link between "citizen-driven approaches and institutional imparatives in the governance" (p. 7) of issues with air pollution.
The text is an article about citizen science in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The first noteworthy detail about this text that struck me is the inclusion of Japanese words and even their original spelling. This creates a kind of closeness to the field that the authors did their research in.
The authors engaged in multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork that took place in and around Fukushima but also in other geografical sites like Tochigi, Miyagi, Aichi, Tokyo and Kyoto. There, they conduct semi-structured interviews with various organisations that are all somehow involved with citizen science or radiation measurement. To learn about the citizens that measure radioactivity and create their own data on radiation because of a lack of provided data by the government, a literature review of policy documents and workshops with those citizen scientists is performed.
As mentioned previously, the program began as an elaboration on the clinical work down by Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School. The school and its associated teaching hospitals have been providing care for incarcerated populations in Rhode Island since the early 1990's. The Center is located in Miriam and serves inmate populations in Rhode Island's state prison, ACI (Adult Correctional Institution). It has been used to model similar fledgling projects in San Diego, Philadelphia, and Maryland.
The data primarily manifests in visual prompts. The web platform begins by engaging the viewer with clips, pictorals, gifs, and interviews discussing the hurricanes from start to finish.
The article includes multiple in-person interviews, including with Canadian officials (such as the Nunavut Premier), a professor of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan, and several prominent figures in the Native community.
The article centers on how social and political factors effected access to care for citizens in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Additionally, the author discusses how "at-risk" populations emerge; far too often, these populations are only noted after a disaster occurs, and are often ignored until that point. This creates a dependence on healthcare and illness for these populations, something that can be highly effected based on economic and social status. The author also discusses how technologies and government involvement dictated the situation post-disaster, and includes extensive information from resettled families and workers exposed to radiation