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Crawford School of Public Policy · ANU College of Law, Governance and Policy
This course is available for on-campus & remote (online) learning. All students participate in interactive, real-time classes. Pollution and waste now pose significant risks to nature and our built environments, with important consequences for health and well-being. This course examines the causes, implications and governance of environmental pollution and waste. Informed by work on environmental justice, risk, and science and technology studies, the course uses a series of case studies to investigate how we understand pollution and waste in their different forms; individual, societal and intergovernmental responses to pollution and waste; and policy options and their limitations in governing these issues. The case studies will vary from year to year, but will draw on examples from the identified themes of industry, urban environments, legacy pollutants (e.g. mercury), plastics, and pollution emergencies (e.g. oil spills).
Essay (1200 wds)
Learning outcomes 1
Group work (500 wds)
Learning outcomes 2, 3, 4
Case study (2500 wds)
Learning outcomes 2, 3, 4, 5
Engagement and participation
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
The standard workload for a 6 unit course is 130 hours including class time and independent study.
no prescribed texts. Preliminary Reading Allen, B. L. (2016). "Environmental Justice and Expert Knowledge in the Wake of a Disaster." Social Studies of Science 37 (1): 103-110. Beck, U. (1992). "From Industrial society to risk society: questions of survival, social structure and ecological enlightenment." Theory, Culture & Society 9 (1992): 97-123. Bickerstaff, K. (2004). "Risk perception research: socio-cultural perspectives on the public experience of air pollution." Environ Int 30 (6): 827-840. Doron, A. (2018). Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press . Douglas, M. (2003). Risk and Blame. London and New York, Routledge. Jasanoff, S. (1998). "The political science of risk perception." Reliability Engineering and System Safety 59 (1998): 91-99. Kasperson, R. E., et al. (1988). "The Social Amplification of Risk: a conceptual framework." Risk Analysis 8 (2): 177-187. Liboiron, M., et al. (2018). "Toxic politics: acting in a permanently polluted world." Social Studies of Science 48 (3): 331-349. McLeod, H., et al. (2000). "The relationship between socio-economic indicators and air pollution in England and Wales: implications for environmental justice." Regional Environmental Change 1 (2): 78-85. Miranda, M. L., et al. (2011). "Making the environmental justice grade: the relative burden of air pollution exposure in the United States." Int J Environ Res Public Health 8 (6): 1755-1771. Mody, C. M. (2001). "A little dirt never hurt anyone: knowledge-making and contamination in materials science." Social Studies of Science 31 (1): 7-36. Murphy, J., et al. (2016). "Regulatory Standards for Environmental Risks." Social Studies of Science 36 (1): 133-160. Pearce, J. and S. Kingham (2008). "Environmental inequalities in New Zealand: A national study of air pollution and environmental justice." Geoforum 39 (2): 980-993.