After the Cap: Risk Assessment, Citizen Science and Disaster Recovery

Sabrina Mccormick

doi:10.5751/es-05263-170431

Abstract

I used the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to examine how crowdsourcing is used as a new form of citizen science that provides real time assessments of health-related exposures. Assessing risks of an oil spill, or disasters more generally, is a challenge complicated by the situated nature of knowledge-generation that results in differential perceptions and responses. These processes are critical in the case of the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf Coast since the identification of risks promises to have ramifications for multiple social actors, as well as the health status and long-term resilience of communities in the area. Qualitative interviews, ethnographic observations, and video data were collected with local social movement organizations, grassroots groups, spill workers, fisherman, local residents, scientists, and government representatives within five months of the spill. Findings suggest that crowdsourcing is a new form of citizen science reflecting a transition from lay mapping to an online data gathering system that allows a broader range of participation and the detection of a broader range of impacts. Outcomes of this research promise to help demonstrate and theorize how citizen science relates to risk assessment processes and affects disaster recovery and long-term response.

Highlights

Through study of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill we can examine how crowdsourcing is used as a new form of citizen science that provides real time assessments of health-related exposures
Findings suggest that crowdsourcing is a new form of citizen science reflecting a transition from lay mapping to an online data gathering system that allows a broader range of participation and the detection of a broader range of impacts
This article suggests that crowdsourcing is a new form of citizen science that reflects a transition from lay mapping, which has been a common tactic in the environmental movement for over two decades, to an online data gathering system that allows a broader range of participation and, potentially, the detection of a broader range of impacts

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Through study of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill we can examine how crowdsourcing is used as a new form of citizen science that provides real time assessments of health-related exposures. Crowdsourcing in the case of the Deepwater Horizon spill transforms lay mapping to an online interface that creates a newly accessible network of knowledge with the potential to shape social relations and risk perceptions by engendering the collectivization of embodied knowledge in affected communities (Corburn 2005) This citizen science has aimed to overcome historical limitations to expert assessments of oil spills by reflecting embodied risk perception of community members and workers (Palinkas et al 1993b). In the case of The Oil Crisis Response Map, citizens collected real time data of a wide range across the Gulf Coast This is much more comprehensive than most expert-based projects that have taken place, including government-sponsored studies, in that the Map captured air-borne, water-borne, foodborne, and other exposures, as well as factors, such as impacts on livelihoods, that could affect mental health. Spill events, such as this one, are important moments for social change (Kurtz 2004), and in the Gulf of Mexico they are affected by historically contentious and collaborative relationship between communities and the oil industry

METHODS

Findings

CONCLUSIONS