Localizing Science: A Case Study of Air Quality in Nairobi

• In Event: Conspiracy, Controversy, and Doubt: Consequences of Knowing and Unknowing

Abstract

Air-quality is heuristic that encompasses many experiences: asthma, smell etc. Many regulatory agencies around the world have defined air-quality standards that distill the myriad experiences of air pollution into a single number. Numerical standards of air-quality are important modes of governance. By rendering air-quality ‘legible’ they allow it be compared over space. They confer legitimacy on a specific experience of air-quality, while claiming universality through rendering context/history of the phenomena they represent, irrelevant.

However, this paper argues that understanding the relationship between space and air pollution is crucial to improve air-quality. It relies on master-plans of Nairobi from 1899, as well as air-quality measurements to reveal how planning has contributed to structuring air pollution in the city. For example, the 1948 Master Plan of Nairobi, specified the location of industrial area such that the ‘noxious fumes’ emitted from factories in the area could not travel to inconvenience white settlers in the western parts of the city.

By highlighting the importance of place, this paper then discusses recent efforts (typically made by researchers in the global North) to use new technology such as low-cost sensors to ‘fill in the gaps’ of data of air pollution in Kenya. It argues that as these indicative measurements are not embedded in local systems, they have been rendered meaningless in situ, and have largely been unsuccessful in improving air pollution. This paper draws on interviews with policy-makers in Nairobi to propose ways in which this data can be ‘localized’ and made effective.

Author

• Priyanka deSouza, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology