Urban Brownfields in South Florida: Lessons Learned from a Consultancy Project

Abstract

When Barbara Rose Johnston described this fellowship research project to me in December 1996 I was excited by the opportunity to demonstrate how anthropology can contribute to the assessment and management of environmental health risks. Over the course of the next few years, as an initial seven month fellowship expanded into a one then a two-year research project, I was to learn how, and to what extent, anthropological theory and methods can contribute to a more participatory environmental risk decision making process. Here I describe how anthropological research methods were used in the assessment and management of environmental health risks risks posed by a lightly contaminated property, or brownfield, in Miami/Dade County, Florida. Before describing this project I will briefly explain what brownfields are and why they are an important area of application for anthropologists.