Description
Book SynopsisBy weaving together the insights of anthropology, political ecology, disaster studies, and science and technology studies, this book explores questions of theoretical and practical import for understanding the politics of risk and the ironies of technological disaster response in a time when IBM's stated mission is to build a "Smarter Planet."
Trade Review"This carefully crafted ethnographic account affirms the deep and adverse footprint of market-based industrial production on contemporary human lives and communities. By exploring the personal experience of exposure to the toxic risk produced by irresponsible corporate actions in a contaminated community, Little tells the occupational and environment story of our times: deindustrialization has left behind doubly damaged communities but helped to spark hope-affirming grassroots activism. This book makes clear the contributions of anthropology to the framing of a political ecological theory of human-environmental relations." -- Merrill Singer,University of Connecticut at Storrs
"This intense local study offers an important contribution, melding a keen application of key concepts in science and technology studies with ethnographic engagement with local people deeply affected by living with the consequences of the Computer Age.Toxic Townwill be of interest not only to anthropologists but to scholars across many disciplines who seek to understand triumphal technocapitalisms central role in creating and sustaining the pollution crisis." * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
Table of ContentsContents List of Figures and Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xxi 1. Down in Big Blue's Toxic Plume in Upstate New York 1 2. The New Mitigation Landscape 16 3. From Shoes to Computers to Vapor Mitigation Systems 35 4. Living the Tangle of Risk, Deindustrialization, and 63 Community Transformation 5. Post-Mitigation Skepticism and Frustration 97 6. Grassroots Action and Conflicted Environmental Justice 118 7. Citizens, Experts, and Emerging Vapor Intrusion Science 166 and Policy 8. Accounting for the Paradox of IBM's "Smarter Planet" 180 Notes 197 Bibliography 209 Index 233 About the Author 243
