Fugitive and codified knowledge: implications for communities struggling to control the meaning of local environmental hazards

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative research was to determine the ways that knowledge is constructed and used by emergent citizen's groups (ECGs are grassroots, action‐oriented, problem‐solving groups) engaged in environmental conflicts, and by a state government environmental regulatory agency that interfaced with them. Four historical‐organizational/observational case studies of conflict dynamics involving ECGs and the government were undertaken. Case studies in a qualitative research paradigm were used since they particularize information in a complex, process oriented manner that reports life experiences. All of the grassroots groups in the study cited ‘education’ as a goal of their organizations. The research documented the struggle for who controls the meaning of hazardous scenarios. ECGs were cultural producers at the local level, developing the intellectual and moral faculties of the community, especially through collective education and collaborative and social learning. The state agency, on the other hand, constructed intellectual and moral capacity from a bureaucratic locus. As such, both were instrumental in community learning, as well as sites of contest. The results show that regulators most frequently relied on ‘codified’ or ‘official’ knowledge that reproduced the status quo. ECGs constructed ‘fugitive’ knowledge that escaped the control of institutional specialists, and that reinforced their local (and at times global) interests. Bureaucrats seldom used local knowledge to make environmental decisions. Citizens responded with rebellious collective action, quiescence and at times despair.

Notes

Robert J. Hill is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602–4811. He is co‐editor of the Adult Education Quarterly. He has published on eco‐racism, and the right‐wing, conservative backlash to environment education. Currently he is a Cyril O. Houle Scholar exploring environmental organizing in the South‐eastern US.

Distributionally, 1.6 billion pounds were released in the air (59.5%), 576 million pounds were injected underground (20.5%), 289 million pounds were placed into landfills (10.3%), and 271 million pounds were discharged into waterways (9.7%). Not all facilities are required to report releases, e.g. facilities manufacturing or processing less than 25,000 pounds of toxins per year may be exempt. More than one in four of the US's largest industrial, municipal and federal facilities, in ‘significant’ violation of the federal law at least once during a recent 15 month period, 2000–2001, were never cited for violations (Biggest U.S. Water Polluters 2001). In addition to government‐sanctioned releases, an undetermined amount of illegal discharge regularly occurs.

Although this is not a comparative study of international environmental education, it is of interest to note that during two workshops conducted by the author in Moscow on public participation in environmental decision‐making, the topic of ‘the burden of proof’ surfaced as a primary injustice identified by Russian grassroots groups, too. Additionally, the polar nature of community health, non‐responsiveness, rebuttal, resistance behaviors and differential knowledge production were themes held in common with the US ECGs reported in this study.

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Notes on contributors

ROBERT J. HILL

Robert J. Hill is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602–4811. He is co‐editor of the Adult Education Quarterly. He has published on eco‐racism, and the right‐wing, conservative backlash to environment education. Currently he is a Cyril O. Houle Scholar exploring environmental organizing in the South‐eastern US.