Barbara Herr Harthorn - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Barbara Herr Harthorn

... In one direction, these data are consistent with second-generation studies of the immigration... more ... In one direction, these data are consistent with second-generation studies of the immigration process, particularly those by Fortes (1996l, Vega (Vega and Amaro 1994; Vega et al. ... Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Arcury, Thomas A., and Sara A. Quandt. ...

M4ShaleGas stands for Measuring, monitoring, mitigating and managing the environmental impact of ... more M4ShaleGas stands for Measuring, monitoring, mitigating and managing the environmental impact of shale gas and is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The main goal of the M4ShaleGas project is to study and evaluate potential risks and impacts of shale gas exploration and exploitation. The focus lies on four main areas of potential impact: the subsurface, the surface, the atmosphere, and social impacts. The European Commission's Energy Roadmap 2050 identifies gas as a critical fuel for the transformation of the energy system in the direction of lower CO2 emissions and more renewable energy. Shale gas may contribute to this transformation. Shale gas is – by definition – a natural gas found trapped in shale, a fine grained sedimentary rock composed of mud. There are several concerns related to shale gas exploration and production, many of them being associated with hydraulic fracturing operations that are performed to stimulate gas flow in...

Page 2 Executive summary Page 2-4 Literature Review Pages 5-9 Methods Pages 10-13 Management Plan... more Page 2 Executive summary Page 2-4 Literature Review Pages 5-9 Methods Pages 10-13 Management Plan Pages 14-16 Deliverables Page 17 Milestones Page 18 Budget & Budget justification Page 19-20 References cited Pages 21-23 2009 Current Practices and Environmental Risks of Nanomaterials in Industry

Nature Nanotechnology, Dec 1, 2009

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 2017

$Research paper thumbnail of Hydraulic fracturing: a risk for environment, energy security and affordability?$

Nanotoxicology in Humans and the Environment, 2021

Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology, 2017

This chapter provides an overview of the past decade of research on the societal aspects and impl... more This chapter provides an overview of the past decade of research on the societal aspects and implications of nanotechnology in the USA. It starts by providing key terms and definitions and then outlines the contours of the social, ethical, governance, and participatory research in the USA, with key examples of nanoELSI work. The chapter argues that all these elements are different facets of responsible development and responsible innovation, and that the National Nanotechnology Initiative's investment in nanoELSI research, education and outreach has provided an unprecedented advance in scholarship and policy. The chapter proposes that nanoELSI has in some respects developed new forms of hybrid social science, ethics, historical, legal, sociological, psychological interdisciplinarity in addition to the interdisciplinary collaborations that form the basis of much nanoscale science and engineering innovation. Integration of the societal and the technical is an ongoing challenge, and the chapter cites some notable advances in this area as well.

Ecology and Society, 2018

Social-ecological-systems (SES) scholars have called for increased elaboration of the social dime... more Social-ecological-systems (SES) scholars have called for increased elaboration of the social dimensions of natural systems. Although a strong body of research explaining adaptive or maladaptive resource use exists, the integration of knowledge related to values, perceptions, and behaviors is less developed. Perceptions are particularly useful when one seeks a broad-scale view of the judgments that people implicitly or more automatically make in relation to nature and/or how people might rapidly and intuitively interpret the meaning of ecological status and change. Environmental perceptions are also distinct from the longer tradition of direct elicitation of environmental values as related to reported environmental behavior; and from understanding of perceived environmental health risks. Empirically, we thus explore what an architecture of environmental perceptions might be. Our goal is to advance an SESrelevant focus on the qualities that people intuitively assign to air, water, and soil in general and in particular. Initial qualities were first developed using mental model interview responses, which were then converted to psychometric rating scales administered across two surveys: an initial pilot survey and a large-scale follow up survey. In the pilot study, four factors-resilience, tangibility, complexity and sensory-emerged as primary (n = 697). In our large-scale follow up (U.S. nationally representative sample, n = 2500) we retested the two strongest factors (tangibility and resilience) within specific ecotypes or contexts (forests, rivers, oceans, deserts, urban, and rural). Resilience emerged a particularly powerful component of environmental risk perception, a factor comprising four attributes: recovers easily from human impacts, self-cleaning with time, mostly pure, and easy to control. Results suggest a greater mandate for explicit understandings of the intuitive foundations of perceived environmental risk as might explain environments we regard as vulnerable or resilient, healthy or not.

Energy Research & Social Science, 2018

Changes to the material and social systems that underpin energy infrastructures are inextricably ... more Changes to the material and social systems that underpin energy infrastructures are inextricably linked to energy justice concerns, and the timeframes of those changes significantly affect their outcomes. Temporal aspects of energy initiatives and their impacts are thus an important site for examining emergent public views on new energy proposals, inequality, and energy justice. We propose urgency is a particularly rich concept through which to study (i) the justice and socioenvironmental implications of energy systems and technological change and (ii) how people make sense of contested energy timeframes. Here, we present findings from a series of public deliberation workshops held in the United States and United Kingdom to discuss projected impacts of shale oil and gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing. We encountered critical similarities across sites, as in widespread public resistance to issue framings that foreground urgency-based claims in support of their objectives. Participants assessed energy initiatives with particular reference to temporality and urgency, and we argue these views raise justice concerns regarding distribution, the creation of environmental inequalities, public participation, and recognition. We also suggest a focus on urgency provides fresh perspectives on justice issues surrounding the speed and direction of technological development in general and of energy transitions in particular.

Encyclopedia of Human Geography

Background The National Science Foundation funded CSISS (1999-2005) to enhance national research ... more Background The National Science Foundation funded CSISS (1999-2005) to enhance national research infrastructure for the social and behavioral sciences. CSISS provided opportunities to engage social and behavioral scientists in the explicit recognition of spatial perspectives and use of spatial analytic tools. This book was devised as a conduit for the main CSISS ideals into academia. The concept for the book was developed in summer 2000 and was released to the public by Oxford University Press in 2004. The notion of "spatial social science" is in its formative stages. It is drawing momentum from rapidly expanding applications of new geographic information technologies, improved software, and newly available geographically referenced data of relevance to social science issues. We anticipate that spatial thinking and analysis will expand greatly over the next few years and we hope that this book will assist this important transition. In identifying contributors, we looked for authors of articles with relevant content who were widely cited, supported from major peer-reviewed funding programs, and noted for use of spatial approaches within their sciplines. Though the authors represent several disciplines, they have one major attribute in common-the application of spatial thinking in their research designs and execution. Objective This book illustrates how the spatial perspective adds value and insight to social science research, beyond what traditional non-spatial approaches might reveal and makes available outstanding examples on the uses of spatial thinking. 21 chapters illustrate how spatial analysis fosters theoretical understanding and empirical testing. Each chapter exemplifies the founding principle for the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS)-that the analysis of social phenomena in space and time enhances our understanding of social processes. The chapters offer substantive empirical content for illustrating the interpretation of specific spatial analytic approaches suited to advanced research in the social sciences. It is our hope that the book will help cultivate an integrated approach to social science research that recognizes the importance of location, space, spatiality, and place. Aside from demonstrating applications of spatial analysis in research, it is anticipated that this book will also be suited as an advanced-level text for a trans-disciplinary audience.

Environmental Values, 2019

Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') has enabled the recovery of previously inaccessible res... more Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') has enabled the recovery of previously inaccessible resources and rendered new areas of the underground 'productive'. While a number of studies in the US and UK have examined public attitudes toward fracking and its various impacts, how people conceptualise the deep underground itself has received less attention. We argue that views on resources, risk and the deep underground raise important questions about how people perceive the desirability and viability of subterranean interventions. We conducted day-long deliberation workshops (two in each country), facilitating discussions among diverse groups of people on prospective shale extraction in the US and UK. Themes that emerged in these conversations include seeing the Earth as a foundation; natural limits (a greater burden than the subsurface can withstand versus simply overuse of natural resources); and ideas about the fragility, instability and opacity of the deep underground. We ...

The Social Life of Nanotechnology, 2012

Foreword John Seely Brown. Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction: The Social Scientific View Of Nanote... more Foreword John Seely Brown. Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction: The Social Scientific View Of Nanotechnologies Barbara Herr Harthorn and John W. Mohr Part I: Constructing the Field of Nanotechnology: The Social Origins of Nanotechnology 2. Science That Pays for Itself: Nanotechnology and the Discourse of Science Policy Reform Matthew N. Eisler 3. When Space Travel And Nanotechology Met at the Fountains of Paradise W. Patrick McCray 4. Conferences and the Emergence of Nanoscience Cyrus C. M. Mody Part II: Controlling the Field: The Role of Public Policies, Market Systems, Scientific Labor, and Globalization in Nanotechnology 5. Is Nanoscale Collaboration Meeting Nanotechnology's Social Challenge? A Call for Nano-Normalcy Christopher Newfield 6. Working for Next to Nothing: Labor in the Global Nanoscientific Community Mikael Johansson 7. Nanotechnology as Industrial Policy: China and the United States Richard P. Appelbaum, Cong Cao, Rachel Parker and Yasuyuki Motoyama 8. The Chinese Century? China's Move Towards Indigenous Innovation: Some Policy Implications Rachel Parker and Richard P. Appelbaum Part III: Contesting the Field: Knowledge, Power, and Reflexivity in the Construction of Nanotechnology 9. Nanotechnologies and Upstream Public Engagement: Dilemmas, Debates, and Prospects? Adam Corner and Nick Pidgeon 10. Different Uses, Different Responses: Exploring Emergent Cultural Values Through Public Deliberation Jennifer Rogers-Brown, Christine Shearer, Barbara Herr Harthorn and Tyronne Martin 11. News Media Frame Novel Technologies in a Familiar Way: Nanotechnology, Applications, and Progress Erica Lively, Meredith Conroy, David A. Weaver, and Bruce Bimber 12. Public Responses to Nanotechnology: Risks to the Social Fabric? William R. Freudenburg and Mary B. Collins

$Research paper thumbnail of Public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas and oil in the United States and Canada$

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change

The US and Canada have been at the forefront of shale oil and gas development via hydraulic fract... more The US and Canada have been at the forefront of shale oil and gas development via hydraulic fracturing. Understanding public perceptions is important given the role that they may play in future policy decisions in both North America and other parts of the world where shale development is at a much earlier stage. We review 58 articles pertaining to perceptions, published between 2009 and 2015. Studies report mixed levels of awareness of shale operations, tending towards higher awareness in areas with existing development. While individuals tend to have negative associations with the term fra ki g , views on shale development are mixed as to whether benefits outweigh risks or vice versa: perceived benefits tend to be economic (e.g., job creation, boosts to local economies) and risks more commonly environmental and/or social (e.g., impacts on water, increased traffic). Some papers point to ethical issues (e.g., inequitable risk/benefit distribution, procedural justice) and widespread distrust of responsible parties, stemming from perceived unfairness, heavy-handed corporate tactics, and lack of transparency. These findings point to the contested, political character of much of the debate about hydraulic fracturing, and raise questions of what constitutes acceptable risk in this context. We compare these results with research emerging in the UK over the same period. Future research should focus on nuanced inquiry, a range of methodologies and explore perceptions in varied social and geographical contexts. Both this and future research hold the potential to enhance public debates and decisions about shale gas and oil development. Proponents argue that shale gas, being cleaner burning than coal, provides a superior ridge fuel to a lower carbon economy. They also argue that, as conventional reserves decline, domestic production can be one way to reduce future dependency on imported gas/oil. On the other hand, scientists forecast that much of the orld s known fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground if global warming is to be limited to 2 o C above pre-industrial levels. 3 More localized concerns relate to impacts including potential risks of water contamination and induced seismicity 4, 5 as well as social and health effects. 6-8 Public perceptions of energy technologies have been a topic of significant academic and policy research in Europe and North America for over 30 years 9-11. That work has investigated in detail public attitudes towards issues such as nuclear power and radioactive waste storage, renewable energy proposals including marine and onshore wind, the use of fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, and latterly shale gas and oil exploration. Such research is stimulated by a desire to gain fundamental knowledge about the social and political processes that underlie publicly available discourses and representations of a risky technology, alongside the factors that drive individual attitudes. We know for example from previous work on perceptions of energy and other controversial technologies, that people s attitudes to environmental and technological risks involve a range of concerns and value-based questions that go beyond the formal measurement of risk. 12 These include not only any perceived risks and benefits, but also i di iduals cultural values and worldviews, spontaneous associations and affective responses, concerns about both distributional and procedural equity, levels of trust in risk governance and regulation, and concerns relating to such things as the protection of valued landscapes. 13-16 Indeed, the emergence of intense local risk controversies is rarely, if ever, solely about risk alone, but typically involves a combination of dynamic social and political issues that pose severe threats to locally valued places and identities, and in turn serve to amplify existing risk perceptions. 17, 18 Although the notion of risk a epta ilit is in itself a complex and contingent concept 13, 16, 18 knowledge of public views about energy options such as unconventional hydrocarbons should contribute to wider debates within society about what choices and options might eventually lead to more environmentally sustainable and publicly acceptable future energy systemsas when, for example, a publicly acceptable technology is not the most sustainable long-run option for society, or vice versa. Study citations Type of study Location including shale play and associated states/provinces Sample Method Qualitative (N=20)

Energy Research & Social Science

Changes made as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing, formatting and page number... more Changes made as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing, formatting and page numbers may not be reflected in this version. For the definitive version of this publication, please refer to the published source. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite this paper.

Oxford Handbooks Online

This chapter presents some of the methodological and philosophical challenges faced when conducti... more This chapter presents some of the methodological and philosophical challenges faced when conducting public engagement with emerging technologies. The intellectual origins and challenges of conducting upstream public engagement for science communication are discussed, illustrated through the case of nanotechnologies. A series of cross-national workshops held simultaneously in the United States and the UK are described. Findings included that benefits continued to be weighted more heavily than risks in participants’ perceptions of nanotechnologies, as well as did the type of application; that there were more US–UK cross-cultural similarities than differences in the data; the differences that did emerge were both subtle and contextual; and that discourses about social concerns rather than physical risk issues were more salient for participants in both countries. Four methodological challenges for upstream engagement are outlined. We argue that we must also place diverse publics and oth...