R ESPONDING  TO  RISK ,  UNCERTAINTY  AND  IGNORANCE

Within risk research, a range of theoretical and empirical studies have also illustrated why focusing solely on expert assessments of risk can be particularly problematic. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck was the first to use the term ‘risk society’ to describe how responses to risk have shifted with the evolution of modern societies (Beck, 1992:

92). According to Beck, during the early stages of industrial development, risk was primarily perceived as the product of natural hazards, such as floods and epidemics.

During this period scientific and technological progress is rarely brought into question, and neither are the experts and government representatives that guide the management of these risks. Risks are further perceived as quantifiable and easily controlled, solely on the basis of available expert analytic methods and approaches.

During late modernity, the period that Beck describes as ‘reflexive modernisation’, science and technological progress become increasingly more important in the

‘creation’ of risks (Beck, 1992: 93). Another prominent sociologist from the United Kingdom, Anthony Giddens, expanded upon Beck’s ‘risk society’ to suggest that risks presented during reflexive modernisation are, in essence, ‘manufactured risks’, and therefore deeply embedded in the process of industrial, technological and scientific development (Giddens, 1999: 4). Environmental risks in particular are intimately linked with both Beck’s and Gidden’s conceptualisation of the risk society, whereby risks related to chemical pollution, toxic wastes, nuclear energy, and biotechnology are risks that industrial society has generated and are typically marked by high levels of

uncertainty in terms of both their long term side-effects and the types of options available for their effective management (Dryzek, 1997:149).

Under these conditions, dealing with risk on the basis of science-based methodologies alone can be acutely problematic. Particularly in the context of environmental risk systems, as Wynne argues, ‘the very considerable amount of scientific work which has gone into the modelling of risk cannot be taken as reassurance that even the main dimensions of environmental harm from human activities have been fully

comprehended’ (Wynne, 1992:113), not least because there are a range of uncertainties and sources of incomplete knowledge involved in the definition and subsequent

evaluation of environmental harm (Wynne, 1992, Stirling et al., 2007). Brian Wynne

further illustrates his point by reference to how risk from radiation was evaluated in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident (Wynne, 1992). In May 1986, a radioactive cloud passed over the UK. Despite reassurances from the scientists that there would be no lasting effects of the radioactive cloud, elevated levels of radiocaesium (the

radioactive element which was likely to pose environmental harm) were observed in the soil and for a long time after the accident. As it turns out, scientists were wrong in their predictions of how radiocaesium would behave after it entered the soil (ibid:113).

However, at the time when the scientific investigations were carried out, the uncertainties involved in the measurement and evaluation of possible risks from radiocaesium were grossly understated, damaging as a result the credibility of the scientists and institutions involved.

The regulation of risks to human health from water pollution can also be subject to uncertainty even though risks are typically viewed as being ‘determinate’ and easily

‘quantifiable’ (Stirling et al., 2007: 59). Risk from water pollution is perceived as being, in principle, parameterisable through the development of standards for toxic substances and pollutants, when in practice the management of water quality on the basis of standards can be seriously limited, either because the standards are not implemented properly¹² or because specific toxic substances that have an impact in local contexts are omitted from the evaluation of possible risks (Ziem and Castleman, 2000). In addition, there can be divergent expert interpretations of what are deemed ‘acceptable’ pollution thresholds. The standard setting process can thus be viewed very differently by health professionals, community organisations and representatives of industries as well as across different levels¹³ (Dunn et al., 2008). Perception and admission of uncertainty can also vary depending on the position of the actor involved in the production of knowledge (MacKenzie, 1990). Scientists that are institutionally committed to the knowledge being produced may crucially undermine uncertainty, offering instead a

12 This can often be the case in peri-urban contexts exhibiting high levels of environmental pollution.

13 The comparison of the case studies later demonstrates that scientific advisors working for the Board at the national level assume implementation of water quality standards to be vigorous in peri-urban areas.

By contrast, fieldwork observations in the Ghaziabad region demonstrate that standards for industrial and domestic water are, in reality, weakly enforced.

picture of ‘misplaced concreteness’¹⁴ (Stirling, 2011)(85) around the process of risk assessment (MacKenzie, 1990, Keeley and Scoones, 1999).

‘Ambiguity’ and ‘ignorance’ are also characteristic properties of any risk appraisal (Stirling et al., 2007). Under the heading of ambiguity, disagreements may exist between different actors over ‘selection, prioritisation and measurement’ across a different range of risk situations (Stirling et al., 2007)(10). The Board for instance has its own framing of what are the right questions to pose in in the context of water quality regulation. Questions such as ‘where to monitor water pollution?’ or ‘what type of pollution sources pose greater environmental harm?’ are therefore posed quite early on in the water quality assessment process (see also section 6.1.1). However, answers to these questions are often highly contested across different specialisms, disciplines and social groups. For instance, the issue of river pollution may be identified as an important source of risk from the perspective of pollution scientists, but from the perspective of water engineers, drinking water quality appears much more central to how risk is perceived.

The problem of ignorance is by far the most elusive hazard in risk assessments because it involves the position where ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ (Wynne,

1992:114). It differs from ambiguity in that the parameters are not just contestable, but at least partly unknown (Stirling et al., 2007). For instance, whether problems of water quality are likely to be exacerbated in the near future is conditioned by a range of ecological, economic and social factors of which knowledge can be either lacking or highly fragmented. Climate change is likely to accentuate certain problems due to changes in rainfall, temperature and the incidence of floods (Petit, 2005). However, there are other key drivers of change such as urbanisation, industrialisation, and wider socio-political and economic transformations (particularly in developing countries) that are likely to impact on water quality as well. Under such circumstances, bringing ambiguity and ignorance into the evaluation of risk requires not only intense and open examination of the existing evidence sources and their competing interpretations; it further requires a deeper understanding and recognition of the types of incomplete knowledge surrounding the problems that are being assessed.

14 I elaborate further on this concept in relation to the way Board members solicit expert advice on water quality in section 6.1.2.

Largely due to the prominence of expert science in the evaluation of risk, one important source of knowledge that has so far been given far less attention is that of citizens. A discussion of citizen knowledge in the risk literature has come into existence primarily as a reaction to the growing mistrust amongst citizens in techno-scientific evaluations, and often following catastrophic failures of risk regulation (Freudenburg, 2003). In the 1970s at Love Canal, at Three Mile Island, and at Wolburn, Massachusetts (to name a few prominent cases) citizens conducted their own assessments to better understand the risks associated with their own exposure to toxics, in response to the discovery of the presence of toxic waste (Levine, 1982 , Brown and Mikkelsen, 1990). Through a process that Brown (1992) has coined as ‘popular epidemiology’¹⁵ they exercised their own political power in risk communication, and used their own exposure assessments to challenge expert opinion, the state and local authorities (cf. Fisher, 1993). Although it is important to avoid reifying categories such as ‘local’, ‘traditional’ or ‘lay’ knowledge when referring to citizen knowledge as if these were invariably monolithic entities (Agrawal, 1995, Wynne, 1996), a number of published papers have highlighted that better recognition of citizens’ own accounts when dealing with environmental risk systems can be helpful in broadening risk appraisal and taking it beyond the confines of expert science (cf. Funtowicz, 1993, Irwin and Wynne, 1996, Leach et al., 2005).

An important point of divergence of citizen knowledge from expert knowledge is that ‘it does not owe its origin, testing, and degree of verification, truth, status or currency to distinctive…professional techniques, but rather to common sense, casual empiricism, or thoughtful speculation and analysis’ (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979: 12). As a

consequence, experts and lay people can often perceive risk in very different ways and employ different kinds of rationality for deriving risk estimates (Tesh, 1999). For instance, in a study conducted by Slovic, Fischoff and Lichtenstain to understand ordinary people’s perception of risk from technological hazards (such as nuclear power and pesticides), it was found that values and belief systems had a much more prominent role in making judgments about risk than in the case of professional risk assessments (Slovic et al., 1980). Citizens were observed to take into account issues like fairness and

15 Brown (1999) defines popular epidemiology as the process whereby lay citizens ‘gather scientific information and other information, and also direct and marshal the knowledge and resources of experts in order to understand the epidemiology of disease’ (ibid: 269).

equity in how they perceived risk, while they also considered community cohesion and the impact of technological hazards on their personal lives and future generations (ibid).

Given the problems of risk evaluation on the basis of reductive-aggregative methods discussed earlier, citizens’ accounts can therefore allow for greater ‘interpretative flexibility’ in the evaluation of risk, and encourage a better engagement with less salient properties of risk assessment, namely those of uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance (Stirling, 2011: 85). In the context of peri-urban citizens’ exposure to risks from worsening levels of water quality, it is explored, for instance, how citizen knowledge comes in part from actual sights, smells and tastes along with the tactile and emotional experiences encountered in everyday life (cf. Corburn, 2004). This is in contrast to the professional knowledge of scientists which is based on technical criteria of risk

evaluation (Karpouzoglou and Zimmer, 2012).

2.6. ‘Interface’ situations between multiple actor groups

Another useful way in which the interaction of different types of knowledge systems can be further conceptualised is by examining those instances when actors from different social and professional positions interact in ‘interface situations’ (Keeley and Scoones, 1999: 20). It is during these instances that social actors negotiate, adapt and sometimes clash with each other’s ‘life worlds’ (Long and Long, 1992). In contrast to examinations of knowledge outlined in previous sections, the main defining feature in this literature is that knowledge production arising out of ‘interface situations’ should not always be equated to some set of ‘professional’ or ‘scientific’ ideas and procedures.

It is also a part of ‘everyday’ forms of knowledge that are tied to social categories, beliefs and practices, all contributing to the sustenance of more practical forms of knowledge (Arce and Long, 1992:211). Furthermore, processes and outcomes of such practical forms of knowledge are here too arbitrated by sources of power, authority and legitimising processes in a similar way to professionalised knowledge (ibid:214).

Through involvement with ‘interface situations’, the aim is to explore the key synergies and interactions, but also conflicts that exist between the various actor groups involved in the policy process.

One such interface situation that the thesis explores in more detail is the interaction between pollution scientists working at the national level and enforcement officials

operating in a local context. This is an important interface because it highlights the types of contrasts that emerge when the functioning of national expert advisors are compared to that of officials working within peri-urban areas. Insights from social studies of pollution draw attention, for example, to the fact that the role of enforcement officials can provide unique insights into the realities of non-compliance and help to

‘zoom-in’ on the primary causes of a range of implementation failures (Hawkins, 1984, Fineman, 2000, Lo et al., 2006:390). More importantly, for expert advisors technical

‘know-how’ is much more central to their everyday activities, whereas officials in peri-urban areas are often driven by more pragmatic motives geared towards resolving practical problems (Lipsky, 1983). The knowledge and perspectives of officials in peri-urban areas are explored in detail in Chapter 5.

In particular, the more practice-based learning that officials bring to their involvement with water quality issues draws attention to actor networks that are not well recognised by expert advisors at the level of policy formulation. In effect, it draws attention to power-laden interactions taking place between official agencies and other institutions.

These include, for example, the influence of industrial representatives on the performance of pollution control institutions operating in the peri-urban.

Another interface of interest to this study is one that emerges between pollution control officials (and other official practitioners) and everyday citizens. Here the interest is related to that described previously since it explores the role of practical knowledge in shaping interface situations. However, the emphasis is on identifying ways in which policy agents may exercise various ‘labelling’ strategies, and as a consequence may often respond in highly stereotyped ways to the particular needs of their clients (Lipsky, 1983). This is a line of inquiry that may be more imperative in policy situations that are often perceived to be resolved purely on the basis of technical or managerial knowledge.

For example, even in a highly technical field such as urban water supply, engineers can categorise their clients on the basis not only of technical considerations but of normative judgments such as the social status, geography and water needs of different citizens (Coelho, 2004). Such categorisation patterns in turn significantly influence how

engineers prioritise their time and workload for servicing different groups of citizens. It is more common for citizen categorisation patterns to favour to a large extent the urban elite over poorer populations.

One of the implications of examining how experts employ categorisation strategies is that they provide deeper insights into how the poor in particular are positioned in the implementation of formal plans and policy programmes in peri-urban areas. As Coelho noticed in her study, the main reasons why poorer citizens were often inadequately served by Chennai’s Metrowater engineers was because they were characterised as

‘disorderly’, ‘demanding’, representing an ‘over-politicised’ public, and typically unwilling to pay for public services (Coelho, 2004:215). Particularly in the Indian context, the power of labelling can be traced back to the role of the judiciary who view urban poor settlements as ‘illegal’ encroachments on public land (Ramanathan, 2006).

This reframing of poor settlements as being ‘illegal’ has furthered a major programme of slum demolitions and clearances that act against the constitutional right of citizens to live and work within expanding metropolises (ibid). As a result of this new discursive representation of urban poor settlements, they are identified as ‘nuisances’, with labelling terms such as ‘infesting’, ‘mushrooming’ and ‘bursting’ being used to evoke Malthusian fears that mere presence of the poor in the cities is a threat to the welfare of society as a whole (Ghertner, 2008: 64). Laying emphasis on labelling is therefore essential for identifying in discursive terms the powerful images and stereotypical characterisations that officials may frequently draw upon when considering the poorer citizens’ specific needs and exposure to poor water quality.