Innovating Works

ToxicExpertise

Financiado
Toxic Expertise Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry
This research project critically examines ‘toxic expertise’, the contested politics of making scientific claims about the health impacts of toxic pollution. Toxic expertise has a double meaning: scientific expertise about the effe... This research project critically examines ‘toxic expertise’, the contested politics of making scientific claims about the health impacts of toxic pollution. Toxic expertise has a double meaning: scientific expertise about the effects of toxic pollution, and the toxic nature of expertise that is used to justify a lack of corporate social responsibility. The research focuses on the global petrochemical industry as a significant but controversial source of toxic pollution, with unequal regulations and risks across different countries and populations. Debates about the global petrochemical industry reflect conflicting interests between jobs, prosperity, and health. This research contributes to interdisciplinary social scientific research on science and technology, environmental justice movements, and the uneven geography of capitalism. In particular, it develops sociological arguments that scientific ‘expertise’ is inherently political and socially constructed. This mixed method comparative research will be conducted in three stages. The first stage will examine toxic expertise in the leading global petrochemical companies and environmental non-governmental organisations in Western Europe, North America, and China. The second stage will focus on in-depth case studies in the United States and China, two of the top petrochemical producers in the world. The third stage will develop an international public resource of toxic expertise to address practical challenges of capacity and scale inherent within both dominant and citizen-led epidemiology, by developing accessible information and tools for understanding, monitoring, and reporting toxic pollutants and their health impacts. The project offers the first systematic sociological analysis of the global petrochemical industry in relation to environmental justice, responding to calls within critical social science for the democratisation of science which highlight the need for greater accountability and transparency. ver más
30/11/2020
1M€
Duración del proyecto: 64 meses Fecha Inicio: 2015-07-08
Fecha Fin: 2020-11-30

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2020-11-30
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-StG-2014: ERC Starting Grant
Cerrada hace 10 años
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 1M€
Líder del proyecto
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5