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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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christopher.vi…
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The article informs its readers that there is an excess amount of lead in Newark's drinking water as of September 20, 2017. Five addresses had the tap water tested and the lead levels exceeded at least three times the federal standard and Newark's Water Department was informed. The article then explains the process at which Newark's Water Department must go through in response to the excess amount of lead and what residents must do.

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john.hudak
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The main point of the article is that a big name organization (The EPA) is taking steps to help the residents of Newark and the Ironbound Community monitor air pollution. Not only is the EPA donating $150,000 worth of equipment, but they are also training volunteers to monitor and mantain the machines so the EPA and the Ironbound Community can gather the information they need. The machines can also be moved around so multiple locations can be sampled and tested.