La toxicité de l'environnement

Living in a Toxic World (1800-200) : Experts, Activism, Industry and Regulation

Call for Papers 


8TH EUROPEAN SPRING SCHOOL ON HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND POPULARIZATION

Maó (Menorca), 15-17 May 2015
Organized by: José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez and Ximo Guillem-Llobat

In recent decades, studies on experts and environmental history have become blooming areas of research placed at the crossroad of many academic traditions including history of science, technology and medicine. Studies on expertise and experience were once dubbed as the “third wave of science studies” (Collins and Evans, 2003). Numerous workshops and meetings have been organized around the problems of legitimation, authority, credibility and extension of expert knowledge in different social and cultural environments: criminal investigation departments, patent and tort litigation, advisory committees, think tanks, international organizations, industry, etc. A large number of papers, collective publications and monographs have been published on these topics during the last decade from a broad variety of perspectives ranging from Collins and Evans (2007) to Oreskes and Conway (2010). Enviromental history has also experienced an outstanding growth in the last decade, as can be clearly perceived throughout the numerous and successful initiatives promoted from the American and the European Societies for Environmental History. Many of the studies focus on the interaction among the actors (experts, activists, NGOs, stakeholders, industry, government, etc.) involved in the process of regulating toxic products.

The workshop “Living in a Toxic World (1800-2000)” is addressed to postgraduate students and young scholars interested in topics related to environmental history, risk management, experts and toxics. Papers are expected to cover issues related to the regulation of toxics, public controversies, activism, public health, toxic torts and so on. They may be focused on a particular substance or group of products: chemicals, drugs, tobacco, cosmetics, pesticides, fumes, air and water pollution, fertilizers, asbestos, food adulterants and additives, genetic modified organisms, nanomaterials, criminal poisons, etc. Participants are expected to address historiographical problems concerning toxicants, for instance:

• Regulation: definitions, approaches and standardization
• Risk: assessment, management and control.
• Experts: authority, legitimacy and extension.
• Money: Industry, agriculture, science and economy
• Public health: diseases, proofs and regulations.
• Law: toxic torts, lawyers and litigation
• Activism: Social groups, litigation and experts
• Controversies: Academic and public debates
• Circulation: Toxics in a global world.
• Academics: activists, litigation and historical research


Proposals of approximately 500-600 words summarizing the contents of the paper, historical actors, main focus and general approach, accompanied by a brief CV (one page) of the author(s), are due by October 1, 2014. A limited number of grants (covering lodging and meals) might be available for those presenting papers. Please direct proposals or queries to Ximo Guillem (ximo.guillem@uv.es) and José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez (bertomeu@uv.es). Further details are provided at the website: http://www.uv.es/bertomeu/8Springschool/

As in previous years, the School is structured in three key-note lectures and a research workshop. The keynote lectures will be delivered by three outstanding scholars covering three particular toxics (fumes, pesticides and lead) from the beginning of nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century.

Thomas Le Roux (Centre de Recherches Historiques, CNRS/EHESS) Fumes: the great shift of risk management (France, Great Britain, 1750-1850)
Nathalie Jas (RiTME Research Unit, INRA) Pesticides. How and why regulating "unruly technologies"? An historical analysis.
Gerald Markowitz (John Jay College and Graduate Center, CUNY) Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of Children