Karen Bickerstaff

Public understandings of air pollution: the ‘localisation’ of environmental risk

Abstract Recent perspectives on public understandings of global environmental risk have emphasised the interpretation, judgement and ‘sense-making’ that takes place, modes of perception that are inextricably tied to aspects of ‘local’ context. In this paper we offer a current picture of the ways in which residents think about the problem of urban air pollution. To do this we utilise elements of a wider research project involving a survey and in-depth interviews with members of the public. In this way — and drawing upon the prior air pollution perception literature and recent work in the field of environmental and risk perception — we present a more analytical interpretation than has hitherto been approached. Conclusions are drawn which stress the localisation of peoples understandings within the immediate physical, social and cultural landscape and also through a trust in personal experiences over any kind of information-based evidence. From this position, and with the development of implications for policy, we demonstrate the need to study public perceptions if the objectives of air quality, and more generally, environmental management are to be achieved.

Reframing nuclear power in the UK energy debate : nuclear power, climate change mitigation and radioactive waste

In the past decade, human influence on the climate through increased use of fossil fuels has become widely acknowledged as one of the most pressing issues for the global community. For the United Kingdom, we suggest that these concerns have increasingly become manifest in a new strand of political debate around energy policy, which reframes nuclear power as part of the solution to the need for low-carbon energy options. A mixed-methods analysis of citizen views of climate change and radioactive waste is presented, integrating focus group data and a nationally representative survey. The data allow us to explore how UK citizens might now and in the future interpret and make sense of this new framing of nuclear power—which ultimately centers on a risk—risk trade-off scenario. We use the term “reluctant acceptance” to describe how, in complex ways, many focus group participants discursively re-negotiated their position on nuclear energy when it was positioned alongside climate change. In the concluding section of the paper, we reflect on the societal implications of the emerging discourse of new nuclear build as a means of delivering climate change mitigation and set an agenda for future research regarding the (re)framing of the nuclear energy debate in the UK and beyond.

Participatory Local Governance and Transport Planning

In this paper we evaluate the experience of public participation in local transport planning in the United Kingdom. In the context of a new emphasis on participation in central government policy rhetoric and planning guidance, we examine the rationales, methods, and outcomes of recent public participation initiatives. Through drawing on a questionnaire survey distributed to all English highway authorities and a content analysis of provisional local transport policy documents, we explore not only the extent of activity and innovation in public participation, but identify and reflect upon the failures of current practice and the barriers which constrain further development. We conclude that, although examples of at least partial success in developing carefully conceptualised, inclusive, and meaningful participation programmes can be identified, most have been grounded in political expediency. Motivations for seeking public involvement have been instrumental in nature rather than drawing on wider substantive and normative arguments. It is suggested that issues relating to both the supply of opportunities and the level of demand have a role to play in understanding and potentially resolving current barriers to involvement. However, we also stress the need to step back from this dualistic analytical framework and instead to consider the significance of the broader political context and motivations for public participation. It is concluded that future developments in public participation will need to move beyond innovation in terms of technique alone, increasingly to engage with issues relating to the purpose of participation, the management of process and outcomes, and structural conditions which influence individual decisions about ‘taking part’.

The British 2001 Foot and Mouth crisis: a comparative study of public risk perceptions, trust and beliefs about government policy in two communities

This mixed methodology study examines public attitudes to risk and its management during the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) epidemic in Britain. A quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups were conducted to examine how two communities (Norwich and Bude) responded to the crisis. People were more concerned about a broad range of indirect consequences than about the direct (health) impacts of the disease, especially about the effects on the livelihood and future of rural economies. Moreover, people detected a complex of causes underlying the emergence of FMD, which suggests that the outbreak of FMD was considered a system failure, rather than something that could be blamed on one specific cause or actor. In general, people appeared to be critical about governmental handling of the FMD epidemic. Although there was some support for the government policy of slaughtering infected animals, the government was widely criticized for the way they carried out their policies. Only minor differences between the two communities Norwich and Bude were found. In particular, differences were found related to the government handling of the disease, reflected most notably in peoples trust judgements. It is argued that these were the result of contextual differences in local experience, and debate on the crisis, in the two communities.

Clearing the smog? Public responses to air‐quality information

Abstract Recent perspectives on public responses to environmental and risk communication have emphasised the interpretation, judgement and ‘sense‐making’ that takes place when lay audiences receive information and advice. In this paper we consider the public reception given to air‐quality information in the UK as one example of a government information and communication initiative. Drawing on elements of a wider research project undertaken in the city of Birmingham in the UK, involving a survey and in‐depth interviews with members of the public, it examines the extent of awareness and use of information services, attitudes towards information and the role of information in behaviour change. The objective of the paper is to assess in practical terms the impact of air‐quality information available through the media and other sources, as well as to provide empirical evidence with which to reflect on debates over the practice of environmental communication and the stimulation of pro‐environmental behaviour. C...

Absencing/presencing risk: Rethinking proximity and the experience of living with major technological hazards

Abstract There is now a substantial body of sociocultural research that has investigated the ways in which specific communities living in physical proximity with a variety of polluting or hazardous technological installations experience and respond to their exposure to the associated risk. Much of this research has sought to understand the apparent acceptance or acquiescence displayed by local populations towards established hazards of the kind that are typically resisted when the subject of siting proposals. However, recent theoretical contributions, produced largely outside the field of risk research, have problematised the objective distinction between proximity and distance. In this paper we explore the potential of some of these ideas for furthering our understanding of the relationship between place and the constitution of risk subjectivities. To do this we re-examine a number of existing sociocultural studies that are predicated on a localised approach and conceptualise the relationship of physically proximate sources of risk to everyday experience in terms of practices of ‘presencing’ and ‘absencing’. We conclude with some thoughts on the methodological and substantive implications of this reworking of proximity for future research into risk subjectivities.

Locating Scientific Citizenship: The Institutional Contexts and Cultures of Public Engagement

In this article, we explore the institutional negotiation of public engagement in matters of science and technology. We take the example of the Science in Society dialogue program initiated by the UK’s Royal Society, but set this case within the wider experience of the public engagement activities of a range of charities, corporations, governmental departments, and scientific institutions. The novelty of the analysis lies in the linking of an account of the dialogue event and its outcomes to the values, practices, and imperatives—the institutional rationality—of the commissioning organization. We argue that the often tacit institutional construction of scientific citizenship is a critical, and relatively undeveloped, element of analysis—one that offers considerable insight into the practice and democratic implications of engaging publics in science and science policy. We also present evidence indicating that over time the expanding ‘‘capacities’’ associated with dialogue can act in subtle ways to enroll other elements of institutional architectures into more reflexive modes of thinking and acting. In the concluding section of the article, we consider the ways in which research and practice could (and we believe should) engage more squarely with facets of institutional context and culture.

The Right Tool for the Job? Modeling, Spatial Relationships, and Styles of Scientific Practice in the UK Foot and Mouth Crisis

In this paper we explore the expert controversy over the management of a major rural risk issue, the foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak that affected the United Kingdom in 2001, and in particular the role of predictive epidemiological modeling in the decisionmaking process. We pose the questions of why this technique was identified as the right tool for the job by government and why, at the same time, its use was so fiercely contested by other experts in animal health. To set our analysis in context we outline briefly the causes, characteristics, and consequences of FMD together with its history in the United Kingdom. We then provide an account of the 2001 FMD outbreak and the policies that were employed to control the epidemic. In the main discussion we integrate the geographical concept of spatial practices with the concept, drawn from the sociology of scientific knowledge, of styles of scientific practice and apply this to the analysis of the knowledge practices and arguments of the scientific groups that advised on controlling the epidemic. We analyse the key differences between expert groups and their policy recommendations in terms of their different styles of scientific spatial practice. In the rhetorical boundary work of the opposing scientific groups we see these differences in ‘style’ being invoked to delineate the boundaries of ‘sound science’ and thereby legitimate their respective policy prescriptions. We conclude by discussing the relationship between styles of scientific spatial practice and recent trends in government policy style and its implications for future risk policy.

“Because we’ve got history here”: nuclear waste, cooperative siting, and the relational geography of a complex issue

This paper takes as its focus recent developments in UK radioactive waste management policy and, through a relational reading of siting conflicts, stresses the need to locate, historically, controversy that takes place in the present. In particular, I argue that temporally distant actors and events, which remain culturally very salient, are critical in shaping the pathway of contentious planning processes. Here I trace the space—time relations that configure the (possible) siting of a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) for higher activity nuclear waste, through a cooperative process of volunteerism, as a matter of concern for publics in West Cumbria. The history, economy, and culture of West Cumbria is intimately connected with the nuclear industry—and, at the time of writing, the region represents the only area of England and Wales for which there are recorded expressions of interest in hosting a GDF. The paper demonstrates that controversy centred on the spatial ordering of the siting process by government—a politics that was rooted in the areas history with nuclear waste—and the actors and events that had structured this past. In this regard, I argue for a geographical reading of siting controversy that acknowledges the agency of the absent, and the play of distant others in configuring a public politics of the present.

THE FUTURE OF WALKING IN EUROPE: A DELPHI PROJECT TO IDENTIFY EXPERT OPINION ON FUTURE WALKING SCENARIOS

There is increasing recognition of the importance of walking to the sustainability of cities, set against a continuing decline in everyday walking. This paper reports on a research project, which predicts trends in walking in Europe by 2010 by seeking opinion of experts who are knowledgeable about non-motorised transport. There is a consensus that there will be more walking for leisure and health, but less everyday walking. This will happen despite walking being seen as more important and there being more facilities, infrastructure, information and funding for walking.