Search

Place-making practices refer to the ways in which people create and define physical spaces as meaningful and significant through their everyday activities and social interactions.[1] In Ethnography, the study of these practices is often referred to as ‘ethnography as place-making,’ which involves the exploration of the cultural meanings and practices that shape the physical and social environments in which people live. This can include examining how people create and maintain social boundaries, how they express their identities and values through the built environment,[2] and how they negotiate power and control over the spaces they inhabit.

This place in Gröpelingen is made a place through the interaction of the people tending to the urban gardening project. 

1. Pink 2008, 178ff. 

2. See: urbanization 

3. Pink 2008, 190. 

Here Verizon presents itself as socially responsible by supprting small businesses with small grants. 

Individuals are encouraged to support the "cause" of keeping businesses open. Businesses become like charities or a good to support with the dollars of consumers. The rest of Verizon's loans are "unlocked" with the shallow digital participation of using the hashtag #PayItForwardLIVE by viewers of the Verizon-sponsored living-room streamed concerts of famous artists. 

Digital products that underly payment for small businesses (PayPal, Venmo, Square) are also portrayed as doing a social good by virtue of being platforms through which individuals can "Support" thier local businesses with gift cards, tips, and more. 

Relatedly, in the USA Today article: 

"The Small Business Administration program offers firms employing 500 or fewer workers low-interest loans to cover their costs while they're shuttered. But while the SBA has approved billions in loans since April 3, businesses point to a myriad of challenges in the PPP's rollout: technical glitches, an avalanche of requests, a lack of response, and an exhaustion of money." - so the Verizon grants as well as other grants are portrayed as heroically and competently stepping in to save small businesses, portrayed as the backbones of disadvantaged communities. 

"The purpose of this essay is to discuss a truly formidable task, the creation of an international nuclear emergency response team"

This quote sets up the rest of the article by showing the reader, regardless of their background or knowledge, that the creation of such a team is going to be difficult.  Beyond the standard challenge of creating a unified emergency response team, it is an international one - therefore with language barriers, geographical differences, and large distances to travel in the case of an emergency. And futhermore, it is a team created to deal with the incertainty of nuclear materials in an emergency situation - even more of a challenge.

The author states a background in STS studies, futher work with organization, disasters, and sociocultural risk studies.

"In the interest of sustainable and socially legitimate solutions, arguably decisions to even the technical responses to disasters should not be left to scientists and engineers alone"

This statement is very thought-provoking and is not exactly expected in a research article - that a scientist's or engineer's decision should be influenced or editied by those without such specific education or expertise.

-balancing point between safety and profitability

-disaster did not happen as a chain of events that made it bound to occur at some point, it happened on a system that was in good shape

-over regulation of the industry and workers results in a lack of flexibility and therefore an inability to be creative in emergency situations

-need emergency response team to be skilled professionally and socially, but on a low budget - and very importantly - cooperation from nuclear corporations

The author compares existing and previous nuclear regulation/safety/etc committees, analyzing differences between them and various shortcomings. This information is used to develop the author's idea of a more effective and safe oganization to enforce regulations and train an emergency response team.

The author also looked at how previous emergencies were handled and what new regulations stemmed from each, as well as how those have worked since their implementation, and what more can be done.

Emergency response is the main idea in this article, but specifically that related to nuclear emergencies. An interesting point was made about the confidentiality of the plants and their "trade secrets" of sorts. While being transparent is helpful for safety reasons, it also reduced the profitability of the company, since other companies would be able to use their ideas. EMS knows a lot about respecting privacy through HIPPA, however it is also important to know the layout of important or potentially hazardous buildings within a response district. This would be a necessary compromise to make between the nuclear emergency response team and the nuclear leaders.

The author of the article is Sonja D. Schmid. She is an associate professor in the Department of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph D in STS from Cornell University. Dr. Schmid speaks fluent Russian and primarily investigates the history and organization of Soviet and Eastern European nuclear affairs, as well as the the challenges of global nuclear emergency response.

This article argues that the creation of an international nuclear emergency response group would be an important undertaking due to the global increases in the nuclear industries. The article also establishes some of the chalenges that would be faced in forming, staffing, training, and operating the group.

1. The article analyzes the existing international nuclear regulatory groups and determines their capabilities and possible shortcomings in organizing such a group.

2. The article analyzed how nuclear emergency response has been handeled in the past and how goverments have prepared for future disasters.

3. The article outlined some requirements a nuclear emergency response agency would need to meet and some chalenges it would face.