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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Anthropology

Joshua Reno

2016

Epistemology

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Beyond Risk: Emplacement And The Production Of Environmental Evidence , Joshua Reno Oct 2016

Beyond Risk: Emplacement And The Production Of Environmental Evidence , Joshua Reno

Joshua Reno

I offer a counterpoint to the prevailing risk literature that focuses not on (mis)perceptions of danger but on the production and circulation of different forms of evidence and the environmental claims they promote. Rather than reproduce the epistemic dichotomies associated with risk discourse, I discuss attempts by waste-industry technicians, government inspectors, lawyers, area residents, and activists to generate persuasive accounts of a large, U.S. landfill and its porous boundaries. I argue that the differential influence of their various claims is best understood by examining what it means to know and care for a place.


Managing The Experience Of Evidence England’S Experimental Waste Technologies And Their Immodest Witnesses, Joshua Reno Oct 2016

Managing The Experience Of Evidence England’S Experimental Waste Technologies And Their Immodest Witnesses, Joshua Reno

Joshua Reno

This article explores the technoenvironmental politics associated with government-sponsored climate change mitigation. It focuses on England’s New Technologies Demonstrator Programme, established to test the “viability” of “green” waste treatments by awarding state aid to eight experimental projects that promise to divert municipal waste from landfill and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The article examines how these demonstrator sites are arranged and represented to produce noncontroversial and publicly accessible forms of evidence and experience and, ultimately, to inform environmental policy and planning decisions throughout the country. As in experimental science, this process requires that some bear witness to the demonstrators, but …


Beyond Risk: Emplacement And The Production Of Environmental Evidence , Joshua Reno Oct 2016

Beyond Risk: Emplacement And The Production Of Environmental Evidence , Joshua Reno

Joshua Reno

I offer a counterpoint to the prevailing risk literature that focuses not on (mis)perceptions of danger but on the production and circulation of different forms of evidence and the environmental claims they promote. Rather than reproduce the epistemic dichotomies associated with risk discourse, I discuss attempts by waste-industry technicians, government inspectors, lawyers, area residents, and activists to generate persuasive accounts of a large, U.S. landfill and its porous boundaries. I argue that the differential influence of their various claims is best understood by examining what it means to know and care for a place.