Thomas D Beamish

Community at Risk

Biodefense and the Collective Search for Security

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Thomas D. Beamish is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 280
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Mai 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 499g
• ISBN-13: 9780804784429
• ISBN-10: 0804784426
• Artikelnr.: 41753700

Autorenporträt

Thomas D. Beamish is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The Introduction develops the context within which the federal government's
biodefense plans emerged and on which they were justified, including 9/11,
the anthrax attacks, and the successive menace presented by West Nile
virus, SARS, and avian influenza and most recently Ebola. After discussing
the context and moral panic that ensued over terrorism, which were used to
justify the new federal biodefense agenda, the Introduction then turns to
local manifestations of those plans and responses to them-the community
cases whose civic responses are comparatively explored in Community at
Risk. The Introduction then develops key terms and concepts that are relied
on to investigate and understand the community cases as well as the
research strategy deployed to gather relevant data, analyze it, and draw
conclusions. The Introduction ends with a brief summary of how the book is
organized by chapter.
1Conceptual Footings of Risk and Governance
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 explains the theoretical backdrop and analytical framework that
organize the book's analysis. The chapter begins by outlining contemporary
conditions in risk society where societal relations among civil society,
government, and industry have been transformed in the twenty-first-century
United States. In this context, risk and its management at the individual,
local, and national levels have become the predominant concerns and bases
for "risk dispute." Chapter 1 also describes how previous scholarship has
theorized risk management and risk perception, as well as civic and
community engagement and risk dispute. The chapter ends with how Community
at Risk contributes to this and related areas of research.
2Risk Communication, Local Civics, and Discourse
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 sets up the analysis pursued in subsequent chapters. It does so
through a focus on the "risk communication" strategies deployed by local
universities that sought to secure funding and support for their bids for
an NBL. It was in those strategies that the local civic dialogue began in
each civic and community context. It is in part the great similarity in
risk communication strategies, coupled with variable local response, that
makes comparing them so informative. Chapter 2 provides an important
justification for the book's comparative argument: that variation at the
community level was mostly a function of local civic dynamics, not
distinctive university risk communication strategies. In the context of
established civics and discourse, even an issue like biodefense, while
"new," was locally understood via events, experiences, and beliefs that
were a priori to it, requiring an analysis of such civic dimensions to
apprehend and explain local response.
3Davis, California: Home Rule Civics and Biodefense
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 empirically examines the risk dispute that erupted in Davis,
California, and how the community's style of home rule civics and discourse
shaped local deliberations regarding the University of California-Davis's
(UCD) biodefense plans. The chapter develops the role that Davis's civic
and political history has played in generating a field of political
relations and set of value claims that heavily influenced civic dynamics in
town. The chapter specifically focuses on the political-cultural resources
mobilized to justify local opposition in the risk dispute surrounding UCD's
biodefense ambitions, while also addressing the counterclaims of those who
supported the university and its plans. Chapter 3 demonstrates that the
claims levied in the risk dispute emerged from a specific civic and
political legacy; they were not new, although they targeted a new
technology and risk management plan.
4Roxbury, Massachusetts: Direct Action Civics and Biodefense
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 relates response in Roxbury, Massachusetts-a section of Boston
where a group formed in opposition to Boston University's bid to host an
NBL. Civic partisans there invoked a direct action style of civics and
discourse reflective of local civic history, ongoing civic relations, and
resonant civic virtues. In this context, the NBL was regarded as an
environmental injustice insofar as its placement in Roxbury reflected the
political disenfranchisement of neighborhood residents based on their race
and class positions. Risk acceptability and dispute therefore echoed social
and political history in which de facto segregation, municipal neglect, and
ongoing marginalization of the neighborhood's minority residents left them
suspicious of both "white" trustee institutions and those from outside
their neighborhood. Chapter 3 demonstrates that in Roxbury claims making
emerged from a specific civic and political legacy where claims were not
new even if the proposed NBL was.
5Galveston, Texas: Managed Civics and Biodefense
chapter abstract
Chapter 5 empirically assesses civic response in Galveston where a managed
civics and discourse predominated, wherein the civically engaged mostly
downplayed the risks posed by federal biodefense plans and a local NBL and,
instead, emphasized its possible contributions to their island's and the
nation's-even the world's-"progress." Residents expressed little of the
skepticism shared in the other cases and mostly faith in the power of
humankind, with the aid of enlightened leadership, scientific knowledge,
technology, and economy to progressively improve and reshape their island
community for the better. As with the other cases, Galveston's civically
engaged relied on claims and justifications that emerged from a specific
civic and political history. That legacy and the civic relations,
conventions, and virtues associated with that history helped ease locals
toward accepting and eventually embracing biodefense plans and an NBL as an
asset to both them and their collective future on the island.
Conclusion: The Civic Politics of Risk
chapter abstract
The Conclusion provides a synoptic comparative account of the book's
findings, arguments, and conclusions. The focus is what an analysis of
local civics politics lends to an understanding of risk disputes.
Importantly, the Conclusion, in focusing on the civic politics of risk,
shows that common political rhetoric(s) such as claims to democracy, due
process, progress, and justice can mean very different things in different
civic contexts that hold considerable consequence for understanding what is
and is not an acceptable risk. The same terms can mean very different
things given social, historical, and material legacies and the civics and
discourse that locally predominate. The Conclusion also reiterates the
contribution that Community at Risk makes to an impressive stock of
knowledge concerning risk management, perception, and dispute, as well as
civic politics, organization, and community studies. The Conclusion's
intervention is, however, equal parts new findings and synthesis.