This project was first concieved as an environmental injustice case study in keeping with the 10-question analytic framework that we used in teaching UCI Anthro 25A, Environmental Injustice; this, in turn, led to the development of the EiJ Global Record Project, partly to create content for next generation teaching about environmental injustice, working through the Beyond Environmental Injustice Research and Teaching Collective.
In fall 2022, we recieved funding to be part of an interdisciplinary project (led by air chemists) to understand “beyond-the-tailpipe” pollution (particles and gasses from tires and brakes) that will persist after vehicles are electrified. The project involves extensive collaboration with MPNA-GREEN, a community-based environmental justice organization in Santa Ana, where the field studies will be carried out. The project builds on prior work by anthropologist Katie Cox that focused on MPNA’s launch of a community air monitoring network (Cox 2021). Cox is now a postdoc with the project; many students are also involved in the project. Below is is how we articulate our research aims for the CA Dept of Justice funded project focused on beyond-the-tailpipe emissions. In the process of the work, new questions have emerged about how university researchers can help build capacity within locally-based, place-focused environmental justice organzations.
RQ: How have the systems/assemblages that have produced Austin’s social, environmental, and ecological problems also shaped the way people conceive and work to resolve these problems?
We would need to collect data on Austin’s:
Techno-political ecology: i.e. the relations across its physical geography/ecology/climate, built environment/infrastructure, governance structure, and economy. This could be gathered by talking with and enrolling the help of various local experts as well as through online research of the City’s, Austin Energy’s, and ERCOT’s websites and online archives, other public archives, and through reading secondary literature.
Social ecology: i.e. Austin’s diverse environmental communities, organizations, governance structures, local forms of environmentalism in practice, etc. This could be achieved by asking informed locals of the relevant groups they are aware of, along with research into Austin’s online forums, social media, environmental “meetup” groups, and by conducting participant observations while attending group meetings, learning their structures, keeping track of City processes, etc.
Mental ecology: i.e. how various collectives differentially conceive the challenges, risks, and affordances of transitioning this ecology to something more just and sustainable. This would require more extensive participant observation and interviews, as well as some social media and mainstream media analysis.
Discursive ecology: i.e. how the different perspectives specified above are differentially framed, discussed, and evaluated, and what modes of expertise, and/or (political/linguistic/data) ideologies characterize these modes of evaluation. Once again, this would require more enduring forms of research, akin to classic ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews. Strategic sites, such as “trading zones” would also be valuable here, as they offer instances of clash between different perspectives. Contrasting mainstream media coverage with what is said in conversation, in meetings, in blogs, and social media posts would also get at some of the differences between Austin’s hegemonic and subversive discourses.
In order to address the RQ, however, we would need to think across, between, and also outside these data sets, working against these categorizations in order to open them up to further recategorizations. And likely drawing inspiration from realms beyond direct relevance to energy, environmental, or local austin-related concerns: i.e. from social theory, philosophy, literature, art, the sciences, etc.
On second thought, I could have never come to the conclusions I made in my dissertation by studying the field alone, or even by supplementing fieldwork with readings of the anthropological canon, or by reading outside this canon. The idea of the archive (just like my take on the scales and systems, and the importance I came to place on the “temporality” of scale, and many other fundamental arguments of my dissertation) came from, and could only come from my involvement in the many collaborative side projects in which I have been lucky enough to be included. It has been messy. It has been non-linear. It has produced rupture, surprise, and chance, rather than being positivistic, additive, or “logical" in flow. But this is the only way to produce something new, instead of simply legitimating what is already known. (Though, of course, with the ever-present risk of still failing to produce something new... There are no guarantees!)
At the moment this archive is trying to answer research questions regarding the environmental hazards and related institutional infrastructures and ecosystems that surround the high school, neighborhood next to the 210 freeway, and more generally the city.
Data that can be drawn on:
Research questions as formulated at start of fieldwork:
(1) How have differently positioned people, in Mexico and the United States, been involved in the development of Urequío’s water infrastructure?
(2) What processes, exchanges and communication infrastructures have supported water infrastructure innovation in Urequío?
(3) How do experience of environmental vulnerability in Southern California and Urequío motivate and shape Urequío’s infrastructure innovation?
(4) What kinds of knowledge infrastructure can support collaborative, community-scale environmental stewardship and infrastructure innovation now and in the future?