I think that this is interestingly written and an interesting comparison between your own experiences in Singapore and the Naluwan grandma. What do you think can be applied to your final piece of work from this fieldnote? Do you think that your experiences in Singapore has shaped you to think differently and feel differently from an Amis person living in Naluwan?
“This is a book about work. Really hard work. I’m always glad when people raise a fist against the injustices of systems, including pollution and its sciences. But I’d much prefer people pick up a shovel—or a microscope—with the other hand and get to work. Pollution Is Colonialism is designed to show how scientists and others are already working in an anticolonial way. We always already are in L/land relations, and they come out in our methods. Time to start.”
Excerpt From: Max Liboiron. “Pollution Is Colonialism.” (ebook, p. 67).
Reading Amanda Windle's briefing note I was struck by the question of trust and authority, particularly its absence, and the challenges that raises for crafting a communications strategy for The Simon Community and, by extension, other communities.
In watching the US Senate Panel question public health experts, the inherent distrust toward science and scientists by many republican senators and Lt Governors remains alarming. Conversely Goldman Sach's recently issued a report that wearing masks could save the US economy a 5% hit to the GDP. If this report has an impact, will it signal that economists are more trustworthy that public health officials, or simply that monetary value is the only value that counts in COVID communications.
I am thinking about the interplay of these differing scales of authority and trust and how difficult it is for individuals, families and local communities and care groups to make sense of the competing messages in order to craft a reasonable, sensible strategy for negotiating risk.