Street Science and Environmental-Health Justice

For as long as the Western world has operated on a global scale, science has been a fundamental took for expansion and conquest. The correlation between colonization and the scientific project to ‘understand’ all that the world holds is one that must be a part of any modern consideration of science as it exists today. That is today, science is entirely complicit in the historical creation and maintenance of the colonial system of exploitation, environmental destruction of the oceans, and the effects on public health. Corburn’s Street Science explores how to reconcile these ideas with our present scientific research. 

Corburn makes compelling arguments about the necessary correlation between science and the community. In regard to one particular activist group, Corburn explains how “The street science of ACE activists has lead to a state-funded but locally operated comprehensive air-monitoring system” in Boston, Massachusetts (Corburn, 2005, pp.36). This novel interaction between professionals, state-power, and citizens subverts the traditional scientific framework of empirical knowledge produced by qualified professionals. Instead, ACE is operated on a local level that allows laypeople to participate in the process of monitoring and discussing air quality and climate change.

Corburn puts traditional science into proper perspective in this book. “Perhaps the most influential” view derived from a positivist view of neutral fact-finding, Corburn argues, “is that one form of rationality has come to dominate environmental politics- where science is the only legitimate form of expertise” (Corburn, 2005, pp.39). This book upends the traditional idea of positivist science and instead posits that communities are not only valuable resources for proper scientific inquiry but are actually fundamental. That is, empirical knowledge gathering is not the work of professionals, disconnected from communities conducted work in the ivory tower of academia. Science is a service to the public, and therefore requires the public’s essential input regarding how research should be applied to the community.

Reference

Corburn, J. (2005). Street science: Community knowledge and environmental health justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.