Regulating Contested Local Hazards: Is Constructive Dialogue Possible Among Participants in Community Risk Management?

This article uses focus group data to explore the connection between scientific uncertainty about environmental risks and the emergence of distrust among local populations, regulators, and technical experts affected by those risks. With data from a nationwide study of issues associated with the cleanup of U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, the article uses "dialogue theory" and focus group data from three locations to identify the sources of miscommunication and distrust among these actors. The authors conclude that, despite problems with perception and communication among these groups, enough common ground exists to be optimistic about expanding participation for all affected groups in the policymaking process. In fact, expanded participation should diminish the distrust developed from previous regulatory regimes.     

Place, networks, space: theorising the geographies of social movements

This essay examines how geography affects the different types of networks underlying social movements. The principal argument of the paper is that networks forged in particular places and at great distances play distinctive yet complementary functions in broad-based social movements. Not only does the articulation of these different types of networks result in complementary roles, but it also introduces key relational dynamics affecting the stability of the entire social movement. The purpose of the paper is therefore threefold: to provide a conceptual framework for interpreting the complex geographies of contemporary social movement networks, to stress the contributions of place-based relations in social movements and to assess how activist places connect to form 'social movement space'.