Abstract
AbstractA single technoscientific knowledge project can entail many different kinds of knowledge production. Here, I show how a Mexican technoscientific knowledge project about seismicity requires diverse sensory practices and the production of knowledge about many kinds of environmental and social conditions. I argue that Mexican territorial politics frame this knowledge. Further, I demonstrate that these politics become evident in the very ways that knowledge about Mexico is configured spatially, that is, in topological and topographic ways that technicians and engineers come to understand and relate to Mexican territory. After situating this argument within contemporary critical attention to the production of geographic knowledge, I address it ethnographically. First, I describe how Mexican seismic monitoring is undertaken from the headquarters of the Centro de Instrumentación y Registro Sísmico (CIRES). Then, I deal with the arrangements of power that structure seismic monitoring and social conditions in what CIRES engineers and technicians call "the field." As I relate the sensory work and knowledge production that field teams do when they leave CIRES headquarters, I show how the things that field teams can know are shaped by territorial politics, and consequently reflect them.Key Words: Mexico, environmental monitoring, sense, knowledge, earthquakes
Highlights
Throughout the headquarters of the Centro de Instrumentación y Registro Sísmico (CIRES), flat screens display a digital map of Mexico in deep green and sandy brown (Figure 1)
I demonstrate that these politics become evident in the very ways that knowledge about Mexico is configured spatially, that is, in the topological and topographic ways that technicians and engineers come to understand, and relate to, Mexican territory
As I explore seismic monitoring in Mexico, I demonstrate that this insight is relevant to knowledge about earthquakes as well as to earthquake effects
Summary
Throughout the headquarters of the Centro de Instrumentación y Registro Sísmico (CIRES), flat screens display a digital map of Mexico in deep green and sandy brown (Figure 1). Keeping the Sistema de Alerta Sísmica Mexicano running entails many kinds of sensory practice and knowledge production—and requires understanding Mexican territory in very different ways This earthquake early warning system can be understood as one of many state-supported efforts to know, and enact power in, Mexican territory (see Craib 2004; Mathews 2006).. Formal presentations, and casual discussion in CIRES offices, field teams told stories that helped me understand why They discussed the material, technical, conceptual conditions that coincide with the extension of their seismic monitoring system as well as the political contexts in which the Sistema Alerta Sísmica Mexicano has taken shape. Inequities can become obvious in exposure to hazards and their impacts (Collins 2008; Oliver-Smith 1996; Tierney 2007). As I explore seismic monitoring in Mexico, I demonstrate that this insight is relevant to knowledge about earthquakes as well as to earthquake effects
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