McDevitt+Memo+1+-+Project+Hopping


 * **Topical Area** || **Data Sets?** || **Social Theoretical Questions?** || **Why Now?** || **How Prepared?** || **Bias?** || **Fields of Work?** || **Funders?** ||
 * Communities affected by fracking || Interviews with community members, industry workers, and industry executives; analysis of health studies performed in communities; data on costs to communities (i.e.health care costs, etc.) || How does the rapid introduction of industrial practices impact communities? How do communities deal with the intrusion of harmful industry practice; what factors limit their abilities to cope? Is there an advantage to collective organization? What factors determine the amount of media coverage that a particular disaster receives? || Fracking is an ongoing debate of particular importance in NY State. The environmental and social implications are numerous. || Research last semester; possible trips to West Virginia, contacts in West VIrginia, contacts in the NYS AG's office || I think fracking is a bad idea, from a logistical standpoing. It's just another non-renewable. || Ethnography, technology governance, environmental justice, social equality? || NSF? NIH? Anti-fracking organizations? ||
 * Governance of Air Quality || Interviews with researchers in different cities, review of literature on air quality governance and regulation || How do societies deal with complex environmental issues? How do they deal with large-scale health issues? || The ongoing asthma epidemic, decreases in air quality due to industrial practices || Past year of TAF research, contacts in Singapore and LA || I tend to believe that poor air quality negatively impacts health, and therefore needs to be dealt with in some way || Politics of the environment, government systems, environmental health || NSF? ||
 * Sustainable Practices in low-income housing developments || Interviews with community members, employees of the housing developments, potential case studies of low-income communities already implementing more sustainable practices || How can sustainable practices impact quaity of life? What barriers face low-income communities, in terms of having access to new technologies? || The need for more sustainable practices is evident in every social class, but the overwhelming assumption is that the lower classes are incapable of achieving this. || Contacts in Portsmouth Housing Authority, need to make contacts in surrounding communities || Having grown up in such a community, I have an inherent dislike of organizations (like PHA) that are put in a position where they could improve the lives of those they work with, but instead they choose to implement discriminatory and unjust policies. || Social classes, sustainabile development ||  ||