Decolonizing Science: Episode 4
Episode 4 of our ‘Decolonizing Science’ focuses on air pollution and environmental justice in an African context, and features a roundtable of interdisciplinary panelists including Kofi Amegah, Rebecca Garland, Constant Cap, and Noémi Tousignant. The roundtable talk is hosted by MIT PhD researcher Priyanka deSouza and CoLab Radio producer Emmett McKinney, with additional support from Allison Lee.
The session was recorded on October 12, 2020, and lightly edited for clarity. Both the video and the audio podcast are included, with key insights summarized below.
Cover Photo by Thomas Bennie on Unsplash
Quick Video Reference: Questions
00:05:00 Can you tell us about your work on air pollution/exposure science/toxicology? Where do you do your research? What, according to you, is the role and/or relevance of science in framing and addressing the issue of pollution in the policy context in which you work?
00:20:30 What does decolonizing pollution research/toxicology mean to you? What work does it entail? How can studies done by researchers who live, work in, and know the context, be re-centered?
00:38:10 [For Rebecca & Kofi] When we talk about “decolonization of science”, we are asking for more work locally, led by local experts. What is the relevance of ‘international work’ on air pollution in the context in which you study? How critical is it? Has it been collaborative? What could be done better? What is the role of international organizations (funders, advocacy groups, campaigners) and how have they interacted with local groups?
00:50:28 [For Constant & Noémi] Is science enough to clean up air pollution? What are the biggest limiting factors to achieving reductions in pollution right now? What kinds of collaborations do we need with geographers, urban planners, social scientists, lawyers, etc. to bring about change? What is holding such collaborations back? Can existing organizational frameworks/institutions support such interdisciplinary work? What are the data infrastructures we need to facilitate the science that is being carried out to be used effectively?
00:51:07 [For Constant] Can you tell us more about the role of citizen science in pushing for policy action on air pollution?
01:05:08 We would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on what environmental justice, in terms of air pollution, means. How can scientific research and other collaborations help to highlight the inequities in exposure to air pollution and the associated effects on health, economy and society at different geographic scales?
Key Takeaways
1. Science and technology studies (STS) looks at the intersection of science, tech, politics, and social practice.
“These questions about whose knowledge counts and what’s made knowable are so central to colonial history and postcolonial studies which examines how the Global South has both contributed to, but also been sidelined by, the emergence of Euro-American modernity which includes science and capitalism.” - Noémi Tousignant
“When you look at ambient air quality, you’re mainly talking about land use management. Better land use management and better urban mobility. When you’re talking about household air quality, you’re also going into land use management but also the anthropology and sociology side of it.” - Constant Cap
“A big challenge we have in this part of the world …is the silo perspective you have in different departments, especially in the public sector. You may have the environment department that is functioning, totally detached from the planning department, which is functioning very detached from the transport department, and yet all these things are completely interrelated. They should not be operating independently.” - Constant Cap.
2. Air quality control is not a priority in Africa, and it needs to be.
“Air pollution is not a problem. It is not viewed as a problem in Africa. …If you find yourself in a continent where malaria is a big problem,where we don’t have access to clean drinking water - what will be the government’s priority?” - Kofi Amegah
“When they were redoing the education syllabus in Kenya 10-15 years ago, they talked about emerging factors. But their main emerging factor was around HIV AIDS and population issues. They didn’t really put emphasis on environmental issues which we know are a critical issue. So we have to see it being put at the forefront at all these levels.” - Constant Cap
3. There is a distinct lack of open, accessible data.
“The reason why [air pollution] is not at the forefront of policy discussions is because there is no data. Africa is bereft of air pollution data.” - Kofi Amegah
“The other thing is how understandable is the available data? Does a common person understand what he’s reading when you tell him the particulate matter here is dangerous, or here the nitrogen dioxides or sulfur dioxides are dangerous, etc.? …How much have we integrated issues to do with air pollution into our education system, or is it still looked upon as a high-level aspect that only when somebody starts falling sick that we realize that we have something that’s actually dangerous?” - Constant Cap
“There is data out there. Work exists. But where is it? …How can all of the information of all those studies that have come out before not be open for us to use?” - Rebecca Garland
4. Science plays a key role in pushing policy forward.
“So in all these things, science has a role to play. Science is what is going to inform policy. Science is what is going to guide the questions that we need to ask so that we will be able to do proper research and if we are able to show some scientific evidence, then we are doing to stimulate policy action and it’s going to lead to improvements in population health.” - Kofi Amegah
5. Limited resources, including funding, is a major hindrance to actionable science.
“We are not resourced. We, the researchers here, we are not resourced. We are not able to compete with people in the Global North for funding to do air pollution epidemiological research, and that is the only way you can go to government and tell government that, “Air pollution is a problem. You need to act.”” - Kofi Amegah
“I don’t know if international researchers realize how financially-constrained African researchers are. …just being part of the [scientific] community, going to conferences, being on international working groups and assessments…if we want to get African air quality into these things, we need to do it. We don’t have funding for that, and it’s a real constraint. And so our voices won’t be at the table without that.” - Rebecca Garland
6. global inequality is simultaneously linked to colonial legacies, as well as present-day access to resources.
“…if you want to understand and act on global inequalities and exposure in experiences of pollution, you also have to pay attention to what scientists in the Global South and Africa are doing, and also what they wish they could do. …So how we can look at not just incremental, but dream about what a really sovereign kind of African exposure science might look like.” - Noémi Tousignant
“If you say we are to “Decolonize Air Pollution Research”, then it means Africans need to lead African air pollution research. Simply put. …So what do we need? We need capacity building. We need resources, because there’s a lot of intellect on the continent, so once we are provided with resources then of course we’ll be very effective. …But you see, we also need to be very careful not to decolonize entirely. Collaboration is very important.” - Kofi Amegah
“It speaks to the fact that it’s not just about building capacity but about examining hierarchies of value and what is considered to be worthy knowledge, and in relation to what that knowledge is doing, what it’s destinations are.” - Noémi Tousignant
“I do believe most of the time, these [international collaboration] projects do want to make a difference. …But to be honest, after you leave, we see the impact. …[The research] will either not answer the questions that we have, or not answer them in a way that might be helpful, is a real risk that you run if you don’t work together with the local researchers.” - Rebecca Garland
7. research in isolation will not effect change.
“What we’ve been trying to do is veer into what we call “environmental nutrition”, where we look at how air pollution impacts health outcomes. How can nutrition ameliorate the effect of air pollution on health outcomes? That is also very crucial.” - Kofi Amegah
“I think we also need to think about capacity [building] as not just technical and material, but also as political - as a form of power - to decide and produce the kind of knowledge that will become part of action and debate.” - Noémi Tousignant
“One of the most interesting experiences we’ve seen in the environmental sector has been how investigative journalism has come in to work with science. …Because when you have the information, or you have that data, what do you do with it? You need somebody to bring it out.” - Constant Cap
“From a planning perspective… we have the four paradigms of planning. We have physical infrastructure, we have economic prosperity, we have social equity. But those three cannot stand without good governance. It’s like a three-legged stool and then governance is the top of the stool. Without it, the other three aspects do not exist.” - Constant Cap
About the Speakers
Rebecca Garland is Principal Researcher at the Center for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. Her research focuses on atmospheric aerosol particulate pollutants, regional modelling, air quality and climate linkages, and the related health impacts. She is part of the implementation team to develop the African group on Atmospheric Sciences (ANGA) under International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC), a newly formed pan-African initiative aimed at uniting atmospheric expertise across Africa and fostering the next generation of atmospheric scientists. She is co-Editor of the Clean Air Journal, which is the only journal focused on publishing peer-reviewed articles on African air quality and impacts. Professor Garland has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder, USA.
Kofi Amegah is Senior Lecturer of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Cape Coast with expertise in nutritional and air pollution exposure assessment. He focuses on exposures for maternal, perinatal and cardiovascular health effects through statistical modelling techniques. He leads the Ghana Urban Air Quality Project which deploys low-cost sensors in urban Ghana to provide spatiotemporal air quality measurements for research and community advocacy to ultimately inform air pollution control policies. His work on nutrition and air pollution policy issues in Sub-Saharan Africa has garnered widespread global media attention.
Noémi Tousignant is Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at University College London. She researches biomedicine and science in West Africa and works more generally on intersections of biomedical knowledge and care with global inequalities in capacity, exposure and protection. Her book Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal (Duke, 2018) was awarded the 2020 Ludwik Fleck Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science.
Constant Cap is Senior Product Manager at Code for Africa’s ‘Africa.Sensors"‘ environmental monitoring program. He has a deep interest in sustainable mobility, urban resilience and inclusive planning. He is a Graduate Member of the Town and County Planners Association of Kenya, and a member of the International Society of Urban and Regional Planners (ISOCARP). He has previously worked at the Strathmore University Advancement Office and as the Executive Director of Kilimani Project Foundation. He has also worked as an independent consultant in advocating to transform the urban planning space in Kenya, including research in urban planning and mobility. He is a Director and Convener at Naipolitans - a ‘think and do’ tank within the urban planning space.
About the Hosts / Organizers
Priyanka deSouza is a PhD researcher at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning in the Senseable City Lab. Priyanka studies air pollution from both a scientific and urban planning perspective, with a focus on East Africa.
Emmett McKinney is a Producer for CoLab Radio, where he works to amplify community narratives. Emmett holds a master in city planning degree from MIT (2020). His area of focus includes transportation and water infrastructure, and specifically how equity and justice are integrated into data-driven planning. Outside of CoLab, Emmett can be found running, drinking coffee, and dancing to reggaeton.
Allison Lee is a producer of CoLab Radio and a masters student in the MIT Dept of Urban Studies and Planning. She is interested in balancing conservation and development, and places community and culture at the heart of her work.
About the Series
The ‘Decolonizing Science’ podcast series was initiated in Fall 2019 by two passionate researchers Priyanka deSouza and Jia-Hui Lee who reached out to CoLab Radio about bringing this conversation to the forefront. Previous episodes include:
Episode 1: A discussion between Priyanka and Jia-Hui on the concept and movement of “decolonizing science”.
Episode 2: An interview with Dr. Pallavi Pant, air quality scientist and founder of the web platform ‘India Air Quality Hub’.
Episode 3: A roundtable of interdisciplinary panelists focused on air pollution in an Indian context.
There is more to come so stay tuned! If this topic strikes a chord with your work or interests, please reach out to us at colabcom@mit.edu.