Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Afterlife of Regulations: Mapping the Social Landscape of Pesticide Bans

Sears, Caitlyn, Tonawanda NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Annie Shattuck at Indiana University Bloomington, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the intended and unintended consequences of pesticide bans and other regulatory actions. Regulatory bans are tools used by national governments in response to scientific evidence of harm and public pressure to ban particular active ingredients. However, the outcomes of bans, or “regulatory afterlives,” vary and can include the continued use of a banned active ingredient, the illicit trade and sale of a banned substance and the shift in use to less well-regulated locations. Understanding these varied outcomes can help policy makers better assess the effects of bans, and re-direct regulations toward more efficient and effective policy actions. This research responds to renewed critical social science analysis on the pesticide complex as a whole, and the changing patterns and dynamics of production, trade, use and regulation. The goals of the research include identifying and analyzing key policies that influence agrochemical regulation, comparing a historical ban alongside a contemporary one in order to illuminate the practices and institutions shaping bans over time, and to analyze the patterns and relationships between pesticide bans, and production, trade, and use of banned pesticides and their alternatives. The research will consist of extensive data collection of primary sources, media and news outlets, and non-governmental organization reports, as well as semi-structured interviews to analyze the “regulatory afterlives” of pesticide bans. The findings from this research will contribute to our understanding of the increasing complexity of the pesticide complex, and the shortcomings and strengths of current regulatory actions to better advance policymaking. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.