Environmental Risks in Transnational Contexts II

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

The environmental burden of China has increased to an unpreceded level. Various environmental risks, from the Beijing smog that often makes headlines in newspapers worldwide, to the widely polluted water and soil that significantly threaten people’s health, and the growing waste incineration plants in people’s backyard, have aroused public concern over their health and safety.

According to Douglas and Wildavsky (1982), environmental risks are not objectively determined by scientific assessments. Our view of risk is socially constructed and culturally selected. In her edited book “States of Knowledge”, Jasanoff (2004) also emphasized the idea of the co-production of science and social order. The understanding and perception of a scientific fact, such as risk, needs the support from a compatible social order. Risk communication with a public is never a pure intellectual process of accepting scientific knowledge. People experience this process in real social relationships, social interactions, and social interests. Their definition and judgement of risks are embedded in the whole social process. Drawing upon these foundational concepts and theories, STS scholars could delve into this area with unique approaches.

The Institute of Science, Technology and Society at Tsinghua University, Beijing has been engaging in a wide array of studies related to air pollution, water pollution, waste incineration technologies, and other environmental risks in China. We are proposing this open panel to exchange findings and ideas with colleagues facing similar challenges in their societies.

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Environmental Risks in Transnational contexts

Chair

• chenggang zhang, School of social sciences,Tsinghua university,Beijing,China,100084

Individual Presentations

• Monitoring as a tool for improving nuclear waste safety? - Göran Sundqvist, Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg

• Inherent Safety and Development of China's High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor - Guangling Xiao, STS Center at Tsinghua University, Beijing, PR China

• Social License to Operate in Nuclear Waste Management - Matti Kojo, University of Tampere; Markku Lehtonen, GSPR/EHESS, Paris & Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona & University of Sussex; Tuija Jartti, University of Jyväskylä; Tapio Litmanen, University of Jyväskylä; Mika Kari, University of Jyväskylä

• Waste Pickers and Invisible Labor in the Infrastructure of Recyclable Waste in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. - Kathrin Eitel, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany

• The Amplification of Risk of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration in China - Yang Haihong, Institute of Science,Technology and Society,Tsinghua University,Beijing,China

Session Organizer

• Wei Hong, Tsinghua University