RAPID: What Counts as Crude Oil?: Measuring the Extent and Effect of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The New School, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

David Bond, New School University doctoral student researcher, supervised by Dr. Ann Laura Stoler, will conduct research on the technical expansion of what counts as crude oil in deepwater drilling and the ability of regulators, scientists, and citizens to make informed decisions about that expansion. Well-versed in the complexity of deepwater extraction and the difficulties such complexity poses to regulatory agencies, Bond will investigate the daunting problems federal agencies face in measuring and combating this deepwater oil spill. Through attending hearings, reading reports, interviewing key officials and marine scientists, and participating in research expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico, Bond's research will provide an ethnographic account of this consequential and as of yet undetermined debate. He will focus on the scientific production and regulatory reception of new knowledge about deepwater oil spills. He will pay particular attention to unfolding questions of evidence in order to: 1) describe the technical constraints of the existing regulatory structure in relation to the complexity of deepwater oil spills, 2) catalogue emerging sources of data on the deep sea movements of crude oil (and/or dispersants) and its effect on ocean ecology, 3) contribute to our understanding of how regimes of evidence are mobilized to define both urgent vulnerability and our responsibility to it. Bond's research will contribute understanding the possibilities of regulatory success and failure in managing deepwater oil extraction; and to new theories of the relation between a science of science policy and political economy.