Science in community environmental struggles: Lessons from community environmental monitors, Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu
Citation
Narayan, S. & Scandrett, E. (2014) Science in community environmental struggles: Lessons from community environmental monitors, Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu. Community Development Journal, 49(4), pp. 557-572.
Abstract
Critical community development relies on a sociological understanding
of knowledge although the sociology of scientific knowledge in
community development is under-researched. Literature on the public
understanding of science, and even people's science movements, has
tended to focus on communication between specialist scientists and a
lay public who, at best, co-produce knowledge with scientists. Seldom
are communities in struggle considered as generators of scientific
knowledge. Even more rarely considered are the material interests
embedded in scientific knowledge that result from the economic
location of the generators of knowledge. This paper draws on the
experience of a community in Tamil Nadu, South India, that has been
mobilizing against the polluting impacts of industrial development. The
SIPCOTArea Community Environmental Monitors have been generating
scientific knowledge by building on indigenous knowledge through the
systematization of observation. This praxis has also transformed
community members' relationship with specialist scientists and
increased their knowledge of science, not only as an authoritative yet
contested knowledge on which conflicts over development may be
resolved, but also as a social process embedded in conflicting relations
of production.