Poetry and scientific text
Johanna StorzWhat 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 StorzThe 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
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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Alexi MartinThe program is regarded postively by the public. If education and training was no longer needed, it would no longer be provided. The systems are also updated as needed- this knowledge provides a positive lookout on continuing education for others who wish to be emergency nuclear response trained
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Alexi MartinThe article was produced using research that was current to the topic at hand, but at the same time using research that provides why attempts at getting a response team was trying and the attempts made in the past 15+ years, supporting articles to why the argument is correct. The article was produced in response to the lack of preperation at nuclear events.
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Alexi MartinThe study was not funded it was on a volunteer basis, where particpiants would be paid for their time and information gathered would be used for the study.
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Alexi MartinThis study has travelled worldwide. It has been cited in other government websites, in other epilogical studies to support why diease spreads after flooding. It is used to support preparation for natural disasters. It has been cited by worldwide health officials in their health journals.
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Alexi Martin"MSF argued in their essays on the Congo that one reason for not taking rape seriously was that women who had experienced sexual assualt were not ideal subjects of aid; since they could not be easily identified with images of innocence."
"It seems that MSF workers assumed that sexual violence would bring aparticular soft of share, greater than that accompanying other forms of violence or brutaility; and therefore should be kept in a quiet, confidential, in the private relm"
"The question is how exactly a humanitarian response shares what constitutes sexual vioelnce and who 'gets sick' with it, particulary when humanitarism plays an increasingly important role in governing crisis zones."
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Alexi MartinThe actors that the article refer to is the healthcare workers, those who have experienced this violence. Those who feel that their perogitive to help others (and to do their jobs) is greater than 'offering themselves up' to the people of these tribes who feel that they are doing more harm then good. Another actor is people from the villages who describe what has happened. The discovery of these murdered healthcare workers and their opinions on the Ebola workers- they do not want them near their tribes at all. Outside worldwide coordinators also comment on the tradegies of the death and the affects it has on the treatment of Ebola. The Red Cross is also an actor, their workers were afraid/chased by locals due to wearing "Ebola gear".