230188 SE Science, Technology, Risk and Disaster (2010S)

Natural and Anthropogenic (man-made) disasters have been prominently featured in international news and popular media over the last half century. This heighten social awareness, it has been suggested, is a result of more sensitive accounting & modeling techniques in the natural sciences, coupled with advances in media, information and communications technologies. Moreover anthropogenic disasters have been a focal point around which the young discipline of Science, Technology and Society (STS) developed. Beginning with Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (1962), critical scholarly accounts have framed advances in industrial and military science & technology combined with entrenched ideological/cultural interest as the catalyst for such disasters as Chernobyl (1986), the crash of the Space Shuttle Challenger (1986), and the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina (2005). Recent techno-science debates address the ongoing risks associated with Global Warming and Dimming, the spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, genetically modified foods, the depletion of natural resources vital for human habitation, and even the recent wars in the Middle East. Often overlooked, though, is the asymmetrical distribution of risk, and the consequences, of disasters across different regions and within populations based on social class, gender, race and age. This is attributed to durable inequalities in access to resources and knowledge needed to effectively prepare for, survive and recover from, disasters.
The consequences of this tragic social-technical cycle are magnified when certain sectors of society profit from the risk of others - disaster capitalism. Aside from reviewing the variety of dimensions to the study of risk and disaster mentioned above, in this seminar graduate students will be challenged to imagine their own research interest addressing some aspect of risk of disaster resulting from a science and technology issue.