6 research outputs found

    STS analysis of natural gas development in the United States

    Get PDF
    Thesis (Ph. D. in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2011.Page 689 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 652-688).Natural gas extraction in the United States in the early 21st century has transformed social, physical, legal and biological landscapes. The technique of hydraulic fracturing, which entails the high-pressure injection into subsurface shale formations of synthetic chemical mixtures, has been viewed by the natural gas industry as a practice of great promise. But there is another side to the story. The first half of this dissertation explores an innovative scientific approach to studying the possible deleterious impacts on human health and the environment of the release of chemicals used in gas extraction. Via participant-observation within a small scientific advocacy organization, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), I follow the development of a database of chemicals used in natural gas extraction, a database that seeks to document not only what these chemicals are (many are proprietary), but also what sorts of bodily and ecological effects these substances may have. I analyze ethnographically how TEDX transformed an information vacuum around fracturing and generated fierce regional and national debates about the public health effects of this activity. The second portion of the dissertation expands TEDX's databasing methodology by reporting on a set of online user-generated databasing and mapping tools developed to interconnect communities encountering the corporate forces and chemical processes animating gas development. Shale gas extraction is an intensive technological practice and requires the delicate calibration of corporate, governmental, and legal apparatuses in order to proceed. The industry operates at county, state, and federal levels, and has in many instances been able to organize regulatory environments suited to rapid and lucrative gas extraction. In the midst of such multi-scalar deterritorializing forces, communities may have little legal or technical recourse if they think that they have been subject to chemical and corporate forces that undermine their financial, bodily, and social security. ExtrAct, a research group I co-founded and directed with artist and technologist Chris Csikszentmihalyi, sought to intervene in these processes by developing a suite of online mapping and databasing tools through which "gas patch" communities could share information, network, study and respond to industry activity across states. Using ExtrAct as an example this dissertation explores how social sciences and the academy at large can invest in developing research tools, methods, and programs designed for non-corporate ends, perhaps redressing in the process the informational and technical imbalances faced by communities dealing with large-scale multinational industries whose infrastructure and impacts are largely invisible to public scrutiny. The dissertation describes one potential method for such engaged scientific and social scientific research: an iterative, ethnographically informed process that I term "STS in Practice."by Sara Ann Wylie.Ph.D.in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HAST

    Bowdoin Orient v.133, no.1-25 (2001-2002)

    Get PDF
    https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1002/thumbnail.jp

    CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

    Get PDF
    The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

    Women's Internet Portals: Negotiating Online Design Environments within Existing Gender Structures in Order to Engage the Female User

    Get PDF
    This thesis encapsulates my investigation of women's commercial Internet portals as examples of design practice targeting female users. I present a case study of BEME. com, an Internet portal created as a direct development of the traditional women's magazine publishing industry in response to a boom in dot. corn industries at the end of the 1990s. I explore the design environment responsible for the interpretations of the aims of the publishing house into material outcomes and analyse the ability of design practice to develop strategies to counter gender representations within the women's magazine publishing industry. It is my argument that there is a need for Internet designers to be aware of how gender is represented and furthermore be conscious of their ability and responsibility to apply this awareness to design practice. Most importantly, the notion of 'many truths' rather then one 'design practitioners' truth', introduces the possibility of alternative epistemologies. This is crucial to the question of how design practice as a tool of creative production can embody alternative meanings through recognition of existing gender structures. Furthermore, locating the BEME. com case study within feminist postmodernism incites a new way of understanding the problematic relationship between design practice and theory, the Internet and female users. Therefore, I assert the potential of online portal design to offer alternative ways of communicating to female users in such a way as to resist and combat the gendered status quo. The new knowledge obtained from this research provides important insight into the ways design practice attempts to reconcile a critical agenda with gender structures. It also illuminates female users' tendency to disassociate with identities constructed in gendered niche marketing. It is clear from my research that current commercial imperatives are deeply implicated in gendered structures. Therefore, three key indications for better design for a female niche market emerge from the BEME. com case study. They are (a) centre all aspects of the design process on the actual end-user; (b) consciously recognise the folly of using gender alone as an appropriate description of female audiences; (c) be aware of social, cultural and political factors that exert influence over the design process. Finally the obtained knowledge offers insight into the general lack of interest on the part of designers working within industry that trades heavily in gender stereotypes, to problematise this process and their role within it. Rather, as feminist critiques of design practice reveal, design practitioners maintain gender values by constructing consumer profiles by means of gendered assumptions
    corecore