Problematising Poisons: Embodied Knowledge and Environmental Health Risks

Abstract

Contemporary policy responses to environmental risk increasingly endorse the need for community participation in decision making around these issues. It is suggested that this process requires a greater understanding of the social construction of environmental risk which legitimises the knowledges and experiences of community members. Environmental health risks are most commonly framed within the discourses of science and epidemiology. These scientific knowledges construct particular meanings around the risks associated with environmental issues. The 'objective and value-free' context of mechanisms, such as laboratory tests, defining safety levels and population based statistical data, locates the meanings of risk within a depersonalised and fundamentally disembodied framework. It is argued that this marginalises and disempowers the meanings, values and everyday practices through which people negotiate risks in their lives. Work in progress which examines the ways people construct meanings about the environmental health risks to which they are exposed is discussed using the case of the herbicide atrazine in Tasmania, Australia. The paper draws on data from in-depth interviews with key individuals concerned about the contamination of drinking water by this herbicide. A central theme in this analysis is the concept of embodied knowledge in the construction of meanings. The argument that the body at risk is a key site of contestation in environmental health debates is developed. This conceptualisation increases the space for community engagement and action in public policy outcomes.