DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Breathing Uncertainty: Risk, Exposure, and Air Pollution Management in Mongolia's Capital City

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

General Audience Summary This dissertation research project will examine how urban residents develop, dispute and deploy knowledge about risk in interaction with air pollution controls In Ulaanbaatar, the largest city in Mongolia. The project focuses of on a colossal investment in new air quality surveillance devices and fuel-efficient stove technologies. The investment is a part of a long term, sustained commitment by industry, the state, and citizens to improve urban living conditions in Ulaanbaatar, where pollutant levels are far beyond internationally acceptable standards. This project will ethnographically examine the following two research questions. How do experts interact with air pollution mitigation technologies to produce knowledge about risk and exposure? As recipients of new stove technologies, how do citizens who are most vulnerable to air pollution produce ideas about risk? The investigator will share specific findings with scientists and project coordinators to help improve both technical methods and to foster stronger partnerships among scientific fields, the private sector, and slum communities. She will also give lectures, develop curriculum materials, and give conference and public-event presentations to inspire future generations of local scholars in the field of urban environmental health. Finally, she will share her research findings to help district communities to engage citizens in making informed decisions about how to protect their health against air pollution exposure. Technical Summary This research puts technologies in dialogue with the social processes of risk formation. The goal of the project is to expand enable medical anthropology to better understand how the influx of small-scale technologies is intertwined with the ongoing privatization of global health. The project will also enhance the concept of risk in social science by investigating specific sites and processes of risk construction, and it will provide a rich ethnographic account of how global environmental health interventions affect vulnerable, urban communities.To meet these goals the investigator will conduct research for 12 months following one full cycle of the stove-replacement program in Ulaanbaatar. Unlike other studies on risk and environmental hazards, this study will illuminate how risk is constructed, marketed, and experienced by connecting the micro-politics of everyday life with macro-scale process by engaging with key scientists, private companies and slum residents involved in the intervention. By highlighting the everyday practices of the scientific process, marketing of energy-efficient stoves, and daily experiences of slum communities, this project will also serve as an important case study of how technologies are changing the landscape of global health.