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.
Doctors without Borders is a group that not only responds to emergencies and disasters, they also create predictions to problems that are affecting third-world communities. The research that best embodies this is the research conducted regaurding the 'Effect of Mass Supplementation with Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food during an Anticipated Nutritional Emergency' they used this information gathered in Niger to prove that with early intervention in children ages 6 to 23 months you can reduce mortality rate in areas at risk for nutritional deficiency crisis'.
Researchers used personal anecdotes of two individuals who, were locked up in Rikers in order to provided a personal view of the conditions of the facilities. The other data was collected from multiple agency's and law firms that have gather data to make a case for either the closing or improvement of Rikers.
This article is supported with the following:
- Anecdotes from survivors whom have experienced the turmoil of living in the remains after Katrina.
- Showing the disproportional treatment of individuals based on wealth. Those wealthy enough are able to relocate, but those who live in poverty are less likely able to relocate and forced to live in subpar conditions.
- Showing price gouging done by private companies in order to gain funds from federal funding.
The focus of this article is on the communities affected by the Chernobyl explosions and how it continues to devastate the surrounding area today. It furthermore defines a new society framed by the disaster and the problems they have had to encounter because of the radiation.
Responce to emergncies is not an imerging factor in this discussion, but is still relevant as abeing considered an aid worker in the medical feild. Te article is focused on health care providers that are more clinical in impoverished areas.