Analyze

Main argument

Anonymous (not verified)
In response to
Lee argues that EJ practice has long stagnated over an inability to properly define the concept of disproportionate (environmental and public health) impacts, but that national conversations on system racism and the development of EJ mapping tools have improved his outlook on the potential for better application of the concept of disproportionate impact. Lee identifies mapping tools (e.g. CalEnviroScreen) as a pathway for empirically based and analytically rigorous articulation and analysis of disproportionate impacts that are linked to systemic racism. In describing the scope and nature of application of mapping tools, Baker highlights the concept of cumulative impacts (the concentration of multiple environmental, public health, and social stressors), the importance of public participation (e.g. Hoffman’s community science model), the role of redlining in creating disproportionate vulnerabilities, and the importance of integrating research into decision making processes. Baker ultimately argues that mapping tools offer a promising opportunity for integrating research into policy decision making as part of a second generation of EJ practice. Key areas that Lee identifies as important to the continued development of more effective EJ practice include: identifying good models for quantitative studies and analysis, assembling a spectrum of different integrative approaches (to fit different contexts), connecting EJ research to policy implications, and being attentive to historical contexts and processes that produce/reproduce structural inequities.

Poetry and scientific text

Johanna Storz
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What I find really noteworthy in this text is how Julia Watts Belser takes the poem by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and includes it into a scientific text. In this way, she not only allows an affected person to have her say, the poem also leaves the reader with a very striking image of the connection between the river and the body, in multiple ways, as well as the connection between enviromental harm and disability.

Disability, environmental harm and diagnoses

Johanna Storz
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The text was published in 2020 (Vol. 40, No. 4) by The Ohio State University Libraries in their Journal Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). It is, as you can read on their Homepage "a multidisciplinary and international journal of interest to social scientists, scholars in the humanities and arts, disability rights advocates, and others concerned with the issues of people with disabilities. It represents the full range of methods, epistemologies, perspectives, and content that the field of disability studies embraces. DSQ is committed to developing theoretical and practical knowledge about disability and to promoting the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in society."

The author connects disability theories and activism with environmental justice, this approach allows her to show how disability is related to and through environmental harm, she shows how diagnoses are used politically in these cases, and looks critically at how these processes determine how, when and in what favor human and environmental harm is taken into account. The writing is shaped by the consequences of the Anthropocene like environmental harm linked to health isusses, especially affected are communities of color and poor communities in the United States, here pre-existing patters of structural inequality, already known from climate change come into play,  this communities are the most affected and the least responsible.


Open question

Johanna Storz
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The text left me with a question that I actually often find frustrating in the process of research. On page 6, the authors take up the criticism of a Fukushima resident who says: “[W]hat you call research does not give benefits to local people” (Miyamoto and Ankei, 2008, cited in Ankei, 2013, p.24). The authors here suggest adopting or borrowing terms from the field that are used by citizens to create a more “socially robust science” (Bonhoure et al. 2019, Nowotny, 2003). From the authors' point of view, this can be achieved above all by paying closer and careful attention to the language of citizen organizations and the contexts these groups work in. After further elaboration, the authors call for citizen science terms and concepts developed by, for and with citizens to better reflect the values, priorities, and stakes of its main agents and of all concerned parties. But I am not sure that this approach alone would be sufficient to adequately address such expressed criticism. Perhaps one should ask about the expectations of people one is researching with/about in order to enter into a conversation and to be able to understand this criticism. Perhaps the authors will address this point again in further publications. I think to ask oneself how to deal with this criticism methodically and ethically could also be very fruitful for empirical research in general.

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wolmad
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This discusses the rape and gender based violance in the context of humanitarian response. It looks at how rape and gender based violance is seen by the humanitarian communty and the complexities of determining how it should be treated, if at all. The article discusses the factors leading to gender based violance and the different approaches that the humanitarian community could pursue it with, finding the pros and cons of each, citing the need to maintain neutrality, be apolitical, and be equal in care, treatment, and aid for all groups affected.

pece_annotation_1473801808

wolmad
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I looked up

1. International response to the Ebola epidemic

- from http://ebolaresponse.un.org/liberia

   I learned about how the UN coordinated various organizations, including UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and the WHO in their individual persuits to end the transmission of ebola in Liberia, including providing food, hygene kits, medical supplies and care, and how within 3 months of international joint operations the transmission rate of ebola was deacreased to zero.

2. Health Care in Liberia

Source http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/Liberia:Index

While physical access to primary health care has improved dramatically across Liberia, from one health facility serving an average of 8000 population in 2006 to one health facility per 5500 population in 2009, it is still not nearly enough, and the existing resources of medications, supplies, and facilities can and do become overwhelmed when faced with new challenges. 

3. Liberain public health response to the ebola crisis.

- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/world/africa/ebola-response-in-liberi…

As international support came into the country at the outbreak of ebola, Liberian public health structures and political institutions were unable to cope with the new strains and were rendered ineffective. Meetings between liberian health officials and international organizations that were lauded to the public as being "effective" were consistantly bogged down in politics, resulting in the inefficient implimentation of programs and the poor distribution of despritely needed resources.

pece_annotation_1480868971

wolmad
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Depending on the source, there have been greatly mixed reviews on this topic, even from within the Fire/EMS profession. While some feel that this is a great way for paramedics and EMTs to make their job safer, many also feel that the risks of bringing firearms into a profession where its providers are taught to "first, do no harm" is counterproductive and even dangerous. 

pece_annotation_1474470219

wolmad
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This article has been referenced in various other articles in the DSTS field, including Engineering Risk and Disaster: Disaster-STS and the American History of Technology (S. Knowles) and The World Trade Center Analyses: Case Study of Ethics, Public Policy and the Engineering Profession (WH Coste).