Sponsored Projects for Undergraduate Research

Project Objectives

            The proposed project uses ethnographic methods—in-depth interviews, focus groups, and participant observation—and archival data to examine the ways in which emergency management has impacted the pathways of citizen science, the types of civic engagement, and methods for environmental justice in the lead poisoning of Flint, Michigan. The hypothesis to be tested in this research is that emergency management has fundamentally changed the way in which public participation and citizen science promoting environmental justice gets done. In particular we propose that new pathways must be cultivated as more established ones are no longer available to citizens and activists to support their claims for environmental justice and public health equity. We also assert that these new pathways have been forged by women activists because it is mostly women of color who have inspired the grass roots anti-racist mobilization and movement in Michigan’s water wars

            The need to clarify our understanding of the complex interfaces and intersections between public interest science and emergency management is now more pertinent than ever given the recent drinking water and public health crises in Flint and Detroit, Michigan and elsewhere in the United States. The lead poisoning of Flint residents has been described as a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice (Flint Water Advisory Task Force 2016). This and other public health crises have led people to question both the roles of, and the relationships between, institutions of public health, environmental justice, and emergency management policies. The objective of the proposed research is to determine what types of collaborative structures and forms of civic engagement are available to local government, citizen scientists, and environmental justice advocates in the era emergency management.

The the proposed research will examine the following questions:

How does the ruling of emergency management influence the types of pathways available to citizens and citizen groups as they work to create the knowledge they need to bring attention to their public health crises?
How is citizen engagement and citizen science mobilized under these crisis conditions?
How and to what extent did community groups in filling knowledge gaps about lead poisoning in their drinking water utilize academic scientists and other experts?
To what extent did civil society research promote science learning, civic engagement, and environmental justice in the case of lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan?

To examine the complex interplay between science, policy, and multiple forms of knowledge and practice that occurs in the contentious arena of water quality testing and public health under emergency management the proposed research project uses mixed methods, including A) qualitative interviews with key informants in the community, in government, and in academic science, B) focus groups, and C) archival data and Census information.