sferguson+HASS+proposal

__HASS to NSF__ from Aalock: tighten up lit review and questions as much as possible, along with state of literature and what needs to be filled or what my conversation will be within this literature. from Kim: find reviewers that will be helpful to the review process

__Tweaked from Simmonds__ notes to self: 1. must define institutions as not tangible items per se but rather practices that shape activity and thought (more like common law then prisons) 2. How are enunciatory communities different than sociological accounts of assemblages (deleuzian style?) 3. Must look at Pickering document from Sage handbook on Cultural Analysis 4. Must look at Miller's material Cultures 5. Emic (interlocuters think) edic (self analysis) 6. Lit review look at Simmonds NSF proposal for specificity criteria: several things that literature says and how do each translate into research questions and methods? What is the whole in the literature? 7. Comparative studies of culture/society???

__MUST REDO CONTRIBUTIONS IF THESE SECTIONS STICK...__ Section 1: 1. The problems of greenwashing / lame sustainability in the production of sustainable goods

Section 2: 1. Visions of Sustainability through the eyes of embedded individuals (smart), academics, social movements, and industry

Section 3: 1. How have social movements missed the second and focused on the first? E.g. the incremental technological fix is enough vs. the wholesale recreation of waste management practices, consumerism, waste culture. 2. I'm going to have to talk with Hess and Alt. Pathways 3. The changing of practice through the changes in material culture are limited, thus simple alt. pathways are not enough, will take forever, or will end up getting incorporated into the systems that are not targeted in such a way as to simply promote those static problems.

__**Abstract**__ This study will document and analyze the developments in the newly (2000-present) forming bioplastic industry with an emphasis on the diversity of actors and advocates surrounding this field. Data will include ethnographic interviews with advocacy groups that are both for and against this technology, waste and recycling communities actions as they relate to bioplastics, and environmental movements that overlap and advocate conflicting goals. The research will develop the social, political and economic reasons for renewed attention to biobased goods as well as the pathways of innovations in the technology that were closed off or made visible over the short history of this industyr. Surrounding institutions that must manage introduction of these products into society will develop around a network of actors that shape this particular technological development. To augment the ethnographic data participant observations of industry conferences and advocacy groups along with an analysis of regulatory policies and politics will be conducted. The study will focus on three research sites with differing variables in order to have overlaps and differences for comparative research. The first site will be ongoing work with citizens of New York and relevant government agencies that argue for sustainability through the introduction of a local centric bioplastic industry. A second site in Nebraska, the Natureworks manufacturing facility, will present a large industry dominated bioplastic project. The final site will occur outside of Milan in Italy at the Novamont bioplastic facility. This case overlaps with the two prior case studies in that the industry is well established like that in California and yet the interests are to work with local farmers and groups to produce bioplastics with particular embedded social and cultural characteristics. 1. achievements and trends illumination 2. contribution to social studies of technology through sociological and anthropological lenses 3. Draw out critical institutional and social forces

1. New knowledge on technological change, social movements in industry evolution, and the complexities of 'sustainability'. The study will result in:1. presentations at bioplastic, agricultural policy, and social science conferences2. The study will also lead to journal articles and a book, and will contribute to existingliteratures focused on the social shaping of technological systems and consumer goods, etc.
 * Aims and secondary aims:**

Historical and technological Political and economicActor Analysis Thematic Literature-social studies of technology -social movements, anthro and sociology -institutional isomorphism, sociology -environmental movements and tech governance From STS Handbook, 3rd: As researchers informed by STS embark on studies of social movements, they draw on a well-developed body of empirical studies and theory on social movements. Although some currents of general social movement studies, in particular feminist research, exhibit a sophisticated understanding of the social shaping/social construction hypothesis that is continuous with the STS field, in general the central focus of the existing literature on social movements has not been issues of expertise, knowledge, and technology design. As a result, STS perspectives extend the social movements literature by bringing a sophisticated understanding of how the knowledge-making process works in science and how the politics of expertise and technology design play out in various political arenas. An additional contribution that STS can make to social movement studies, and vice-versa, returns to the history of a current in the STS field that developed out of reform movements within science that sought to link scholarship to partisan and activist goals (Martin, 1993; Woodhouse et al., 2002). The “reconstructivist” current can provide a helpful corrective to both the social movement and STS literatures, which activists tend not to read or use, by posing the question of how research that follows a social justice–oriented agenda is different from research based on a scholar-directed agenda. Just as social movements shape and are shaped by their environment, so social movement researchers shape and are shaped by theirs. The key question in movements for social justice is who does the shaping?
 * Background and Significance:**


 * Prior work, preparation and study:**


 * What are the questions that I can include from the outset that position me to think about prescriptions, better design, better systems, better institutions without hindering my ability to keep my senses open to alternative practices that run outside of these original questions? Get through secondary review of literature and work at internship.**


 * Research Methodology and Timeline:**

Study Components-literature review, questions and IRB Interviews-members of groups, members of industry, members of recycling, farmers?, if I have to bail do I put a disclaimer in this (e.g. can't get to italy?) Participant Observations-Work at governor's office and with Raymond Cross, if interviews are leading then Novamont with spillover into community participants, Nebraska facility (necessary? perhaps just interviews, industry events, public venues and protest.


 * Research questions and Analytical goals:**


 * Field Sites (different than above in methodology, well somewhat obvious):**


 * Timeline of Research:**


 * Research Ethics:**


 * Dissemination:**


 * Prior NSF funding PI?:**