Community Epistemic Capacities

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Michigan St at e Universit y] On: 23 February 2015, At : 07: 57 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions f or aut hors and subscript ion inf ormat ion: ht t p: / / www. t andf online. com/ loi/ t sep20 Community Epistemic Capacity Ian Werkheiser Published online: 19 Feb 2015. Click for updates To cite this article: Ian Werkheiser (2015): Communit y Epist emic Capacit y, Social Epist emology: A Journal of Knowledge, Cult ure and Policy, DOI: 10. 1080/ 02691728. 2014. 971911 To link to this article: ht t p: / / dx. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 02691728. 2014. 971911 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Taylor & Francis m akes every effort t o ensure t he accuracy of all t he inform at ion ( t he “ Cont ent ” ) cont ained in t he publicat ions on our plat form . However, Taylor & Francis, our agent s, and our licensors m ake no represent at ions or warrant ies what soever as t o t he accuracy, com plet eness, or suit abilit y for any purpose of t he Cont ent . Any opinions and views expressed in t his publicat ion are t he opinions and views of t he aut hors, and are not t he views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of t he Cont ent should not be relied upon and should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources of inform at ion. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem ands, cost s, expenses, dam ages, and ot her liabilit ies what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h, in relat ion t o or arising out of t he use of t he Cont ent . This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly forbidden. Term s & Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Condit ions of access and use can be found at ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm sand- condit ions Social Epistemology, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2014.971911 Community Epistemic Capacity Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Ian Werkheiser Despite US policy documents which recommend that in areas of environmental risk, interaction between scientific experts and the public move beyond the so-called “Decide, Announce, and Defend model,” many current public involvement policies still do not guarantee meaningful public participation. In response to this problem, various attempts have been made to define what counts as sufficient or meaningful participation and free informed consent from those affected. Though defining “meaningfulness” is a complex task, this paper explores one under-examined dimension that concerns the relationship between consent and the idea that citizens should be sufficiently informed: epistemic capacity. This paper will look at some of the work on meaningful participation and consent, give a definition of epistemic capacity, and argue that only a community with sufficient epistemic capacity can have the understanding and competence to give informed enough consent and thus participate meaningfully. Keywords: Community Capacities; Epistemic Capacities; Public Participation; Risk Assessment; Expertise; Popular Epidemiology; Science Shops Introduction Many United States (US) policy documents (e.g. National Research Council 1994; National Research Council, Dietz, and Stern 2008; National Research Council et al. 1996) recommend that interaction between scientific experts and the public in risk decision must move beyond the so-called “Decide, Announce, and Defend model” (e.g. Yosie and Herbst 1998). Indeed, the National Research Council recommends deep and extensive interactions: The spectrum of interested and affected parties in deliberation can make the process leading to risk characterization more democratic, legitimate, and informative for Ian Werkheiser is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University. He works on issues of environmental justice, food sovereignty and justice, and social epistemology. Correspondence to: Ian Werkheiser, Philosophy Department, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 48824 USA. Email: werkhei1@msu.edu Ó 2015 Taylor & Francis 2 I. Werkheiser Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 decision participants … by improving problem formulation, providing more knowledge, determining appropriate uses for controversial analytic techniques, clarifying views, and making decisions more acceptable. (National Research Council 1996, 79) Recommendations like this one call for opportunities for deliberation at “Every step of the process that informs risk decisions” (ibid., 76). Kasperson calls this participation “Early and often” (Kasperson 1986). Protocols for early and often participation opportunities for the public can thus be understood as establishing the minimum procedures needed for the public to consent to whatever risk decisions arise from the (early and often) deliberations. “Consent” by a community is here understood as the community at least accepting a decision, agreeing not to oppose it, and using the reality of that decision in future decision-making processes. This consent may be so strong as to mean that the community will actively endorse, support, and work to achieve this decision, but it need not. Despite the recommendations just referenced and their connection to consent, many actual agency rules and protocols for public involvement are seen either just as boxes to be checked without further value as procedures for grounding consent, or as valuable but only to the extent that they legitimate agencies and their decisions instead of allowing members of the public to alter the course of risk decisions (Chess and Purcell 1999). For example, many US agencies follow the minimum “notice and comment” requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which amounts to requiring that they “Declare what it is thinking about regulating, give others a chance to say what they think about the agency’s thoughts, and wrap things up by justifying the agency’s ultimate regulatory choice” (Murphy 2012). In other words, the current public involvement policies, even those based on the recommendations above, still do not guarantee much meaningful public participation. In response to this problem, various attempts have been made to define what counts as sufficient or meaningful participation and free informed consent from those affected. Though defining “meaningfulness” is a complex task, this paper explores one dimension of it that concerns the relationship between consent and the idea that citizens should be sufficiently informed. While there might be times when consulting “the public” is best thought of as consulting the individuals affected rather than the communities qua communities, there are reasons to believe that, in at least some cases, approaches which do not consult communities earlier in the process, and merely allow them to weigh in on RCBAs (Risk and Cost Benefit Analysis, although this acronym is sometimes used to interchangeably refer to Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis as in Cole (2009)) or QRAs (Quantitative Risk Assessments), are seen as insufficient by those communities (e.g. Native American tribes in Arquette et al. 2002; Ranco et al. 2011). For the purposes of this paper, I will look at cases where community consent is valuable and exploring (some of) the necessary conditions for adequate community consent. I will argue that one essential element of meaningful participation is the affected communities giving free informed consent, and a necessary part of this process Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 3 involves being informed enough for free informed consent. While what being “informed enough” means is a common topic, I will show how in areas of environmental risk there is not enough focus on what I define in this paper as community epistemic capacity the ability to gain, maintain, adapt, and continue the knowledge which is needed to solve problems and manage the environment. I argue that only a community with sufficient epistemic capacity can have the understanding and competence to give informed enough consent and thus participate meaningfully. In section one, I will briefly look at meaningfulness in terms of participation and show how being “informed enough” has been understood as a key component of consent, even in risk decisions involving complex technical issues. In section two, I will look at Kristin Shrader-Frechette’s analysis of meaningful participation and free informed consent. I will argue that while she is correct in saying that mere participation and consent are not sufficient, there is room for greater expansion on the idea of meaningful participation she is calling for and how to achieve it. In section three, I argue that the concept of epistemic capacity provides some of that needed expansion because it should be seen as a foundational element of meaningful participation. In section four I will look at two case studies which help illustrate some of the more abstract points earlier in the paper. I conclude in section five by looking at ways of building up this epistemic capacity that can at least begin to have practical policy applications. By focusing on the work of Shrader-Frechette, among other authors, this paper seeks to identify an under analyzed aspect of the literature on public participation: elements a community must possess in order to participate meaningfully and grant fully informed consent. It will also suggest the framework of community epistemic capacity for understanding these necessary elements. Meaningful Participation, Informed Enough Consent, and Public Policy Much work has been done on participatory justice in risk decisions (e.g. Arquette et al. 2002; Cole 2009; Ranco et al. 2011; Shrader-Frechette 2002; Wallerstein and Duran 2006). As a rough beginning, we can say that participation cannot be meaningful (and therefore cannot be just) if the participants have no means to affect the outcome of a process with respect to their interests, values, and knowledge. Further, we can say that the process of participation, in its scope, the role of various stakeholders, and so on, must itself be understood and agreed to by the participants (fortunately this understanding and agreement can be achieved during the process, thereby avoiding an infinite regress of consent-seeking). One ingredient of being able to affect the outcome, and to accept and understand the process, is that citizens must be informed enough. For, if participants do not know to what they are consenting (or dissenting), the consent is meaningless from the perspective of participation. “Informed” consent has a rich tradition in medical ethics (e.g. Beauchamp and Childress 1994; Faden and Beauchamp 1986), and those principles have been Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 4 I. Werkheiser applied to community decision processes (e.g. Derr et al. 1981; Elliot 2011; Shrader-Frechette 1991; Teuber 1990). However, principles from medical ethics are often about the interactions between doctors, the individual patients, and their families. Thus it is possible to insist that all affected parties communicate with each other, are informed, and asked for their consent. For community consent, it is usually the case that not everyone affected can be directly consulted and asked for consent. For communities, then, the focus moves from receiving consent from each person affected to providing opportunities for deliberative democracy. Whether these opportunities are taken or not, this can be seen as tacit consent (e.g. National Research Council, Ostrom et al. 2002). Here again the consent must be informed enough to be meaningful. If the public was not aware of these opportunities or what they meant, the tacit consent is meaningless. Still, what informed enough means in a community context, and therefore what the minimum standards for governments or other larger institutions for structuring these opportunities for deliberative democratic processes ought to be, is not as clear as in the medical ethics case. Some authors, such as Sunstein (2002), have argued that members of the public are too prone to errors in judgment and flawed reasoning to compare what risks deserve more policy intervention and funding than others. Therefore, “informed enough” is largely satisfied by knowing who the experts are and having them assign risk probabilities, costs, and benefits to them. Informed enough consent is achieved by the community having an opportunity to review and comment on this RCBA developed by experts. Sunstein’s account is a version of the leading concept of informed enough consent in policy, though some authors add other constraints to the consent, such as viable and risk-free alternatives (e.g. Teuber 1990; Thomson 1985). Other thinkers, notably Shrader-Frechette (1991), are unsatisfied by this dominant concept of informed consent, arguing that being informed enough requires more than the information in an RCBA being presented to the community—citizens should also be involved in discussions about how benefits and costs are calculated in the RCBA in the first place. RCBAs have value judgments embedded within them which should be decided by the affected parties, rather than experts. For Shrader-Frechette, then, “informed enough” requires that the community have an active hand in directing all stages of the deliberative process. Both Sunstein and Shrader-Frechette have crafted solutions to the problem of moving “informed consent” from medical ethics over to public policy. The differences between the two accounts concern the extent to which citizens should be involved in the processes by which they are informed about the risks and tradeoffs involved in risk decisions. Shrader-Frechette’s account is more in keeping with the policy recommendations for deeper involvement discussed in the introduction. In the next part of the paper I will focus on it. I will also show that for ShraderFrechette, or anyone offering an approach that calls for robust participation, epistemic capacity is an important element to meaningful participation. Social Epistemology 5 Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Shrader-Frechette and Free Informed Consent In Risk and Rationality (1991), Shrader-Frechette argues that, contrary to the common and Sunstein-esque argument that members of the public make biased judgments about risks, both experts and the public use value judgments in risk assessment, particularly when evaluating the acceptability of risk. As a result, “No one has privileged access to the truth about risk acceptability merely because she is an engineer rather than a housewife” (1991, 31), and “Contrary to the assertions of other assessors, controversy over hazardous technologies very likely arises because of the value placed on consequences, not because of overestimated risk probabilities” (1991, 94). Given then that there is no prima facie reason to not allow the public to participate, Shrader-Frechette explicates three reasons why the public should be included in risk assessment and policy, the third of which has a key epistemic component: when the public meaningfully participates in negotiating risk, that risk assessment will be more objective when it is has survived “Scrutiny and criticism by different, well-calibrated communities of theory holders, each with different transformations of ethical assessments of the same hazard” (1991, 192). In this view of rationality, the public has as important a role to play as experts, particularly in risk evaluation. In order to play this role, they must be able to consent to a risk assessment or alter it only after they are able to understand it well enough to apply their own frameworks of ethical assessments to bear. Here, then, we see the beginning of a richer definition of what informed enough might mean outside of the individualistic model in medical ethics. Having made this argument in favor of including the public, Shrader-Frechette lays out three conditions that must be met for free informed consent as an aspect of meaningful participation (1991, 206–7). The first and third of these conditions focus on participatory power for the different groups, public and institutional, that are coming together to create the risk assessment. Her second requirement is the one that speaks to sufficiently informed consent. She says that in order for free informed consent to be realized, alternative evaluative assumptions and methodologies ought to be considered in the process, and that this may well require the government fund alternative studies which incorporate the values of the public (1991, 207). In Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy (2002), Shrader-Frechette greatly expands her treatment of full informed consent, arguing that “Stakeholder and expert deliberation [should be] given equal weight” (2002, 28). She also adds another four conditions for achieving it to those provided in 1991. Again, we will focus on those conditions that are concerned with being informed enough. These are (1) full disclosure of risk by professionals, (2) understanding on the part of those giving consent (which may require “Professionals to help persons overcome factors such as irrationality, immaturity, and distorted information, all of which can limit their comprehension of a situation to which they have a right to give or withhold consent”) (2002, 77), and (4) competence to give or withhold consent to Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 6 I. Werkheiser this particular act on rational grounds (2002, 77). (Her requirement (3) is about voluntariness of consent and has less of an epistemic focus.) These conditions are not as easily met as those in her earlier book, which could (at least in theory) be simply paid for by the government in a given situation. Instead, characteristics of the community, such as a “low level of education” (2002, 78) can “jeopardise its ability to meet [the] requirements for free informed consent” (2002, 78). This is, in part, because “Low levels of education can prevent the understanding condition from being satisfied” (2002, 78). In these two works, then, we see that Shrader-Frechette’s free informed consent requires that the community have certain characteristics (such as education level), and abilities (such as the ability to conduct studies which embed their values) in order for that community to be in a position to give fully informed consent. In practice, then, any program seeking to elicit free informed consent from a community might well need to first find ways to increase these characteristics and abilities in order to meet the necessary conditions for the community to truly be informed enough. I will argue in the rest of this paper that these characteristics and abilities can best be seen as part of a larger set of community epistemic capacities. I will address, in part, how these might be built up in practice. Community Epistemic Capacity Though Shrader-Frechette is right to focus on characteristics of the audience as well as the information itself when deciding if informed enough consent is possible, she makes several assumptions about epistemology which lead to an emphasis on individuals and a de-emphasis on communities. It is worth examining these assumptions and their consequences for what informed enough consent looks like. Shrader-Frechette argues that a community’s “low level of education” (2002, 78) might render informed enough consent impossible by preventing the principle of understanding from being fulfilled, and discusses a case study where the low level of education in a community at least gives prima facie reason to suspect that they could not provide free informed consent. This is the only epistemic requirement of the community (as opposed to requirements, like honesty, placed on those soliciting the consent) in the book. By using education levels as a metric for what it means for a community to be able to be informed enough, she is assuming that the important scale for informed enough consent is the epistemic capacity of the individual, and averages of individuals, as opposed to the epistemic capacity of the community. It is also worth pointing out that this metric rests on the assumption that formal education is the most useful way of measuring the ability to understand and assess risk, as opposed to things like Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). As Shrader-Frechette has herself pointed out in critiques of Sunstein, when they are out of their area of expertise and do not have superior data, “[Presumably well-educated] Scientific experts are no better than laypeople in estimating risk probabilities” (2010, 121). This makes it unlikely that education of members of a Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 7 community is the best metric for assessing the possibility of that community being informed enough. In her (1991), when Shrader-Frechette lays out requirements for free informed consent to allow meaningful participation, she does not say anything about how the community would have to be constituted in order to take advantage of the government being willing to pay for alternative studies incorporating the community’s values. She seems to assume that as long as these studies are conducted by competent professionals and paid for in a way that does not burden the community, any kind of community can benefit equally, which again de-emphasizes the capacities (or lack thereof) of particular communities. This method additionally seems to assume a high level of trust of experts by the community, something which (as we will see in a later section) is not always the case. A lack of trust makes it unlikely that a community can derive the same benefits from the studies Shrader-Frechette calls for than would a community which trusted those findings. Also, similarly to her emphasis on education in her (2002), Shrader-Frechette emphasizes scientific studies conducted by experts, as if these were the only or the markedly superior way for a community’s knowledge to be relevant and to be reflected upon and shared. All this is not to say that Shrader-Frechette is ignoring communities altogether in her work—far from it. That the relevant unit for informed enough consent is communities rather than individuals seems to be implied in at least some aspects of her work. The first condition of meaningful participation in her (1991) is equivalent economic and political power. While Shrader-Frechette argues that the government should enact policies and fund communities to reduce their disadvantage relative to government institutions or large corporations in terms of economic and political power, it is difficult to imagine achieving anything like this equality for each individual in an affected community. This is particularly so given how individuals coming together to petition, fight, and otherwise engage in participation with these larger entities is one of the few effective strategies in our current political system (e.g. Brown 1993). Shrader-Frechette supports active community participation, as opposed to participation by isolated individuals, in a political context, but they have a role to play in an epistemic context as well which she does not fully discuss. I will argue that for a community to give informed enough consent and therefore to begin to meaningfully participate requires epistemic capacity as a community. Essential Elements of Community Epistemic Capacity There has been work on community capacities to represent their own interests and participate meaningfully in research and policy questions (e.g. Chaskin 2001; Freudenberg 2004; Goodman et al. 1998), and how techniques like communitybased participatory research can increase these capacities (Minkler et al. 2008). However, this work has not looked at epistemic capacities as an essential element Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 8 I. Werkheiser of community capacities for participation. In literature on this topic, “community capacity” is commonly understood as referring to something like “A set of dynamic community traits, resources, and associational patterns that can be brought to bear for community building and community health improvements” (Norton, Mcleroy et al. 2002). I agree with this definition, but as this paper is focusing on epistemic capacity, it is worth defining the more specific term. By community epistemic capacity I mean a community’s ability to gain, maintain, adapt, and continue the knowledge that it needs to solve problems and manage its environment. Epistemic capacities cover everything from communities learning about entirely unprecedented forms of pollution, to maintaining and continuing their knowledge about something in the environment the community has had a relationship with for thousands of years. While a complete description of epistemic capacity would vary from community to community, there are some essential elements in any successful epistemic community. One of the essential elements of community epistemic capacity is the ability to gain knowledge. This means that there must be accepted methodologies within the community for gaining the knowledge that is important to them and that embed their values. These methodologies must have high buy-in among members of the community (e.g. be trusted), be well understood, and be effective. This is true whether the methodologies in their practice are widely dispersed within the community (perhaps for egalitarian reasons or for efficiency of distributed resources such as time), or rely on specialized segments of the community who are well respected in their given realm of specialization and who are an accessible resource for other members of the community. There also must be “knowledge networks” of trusted relationships (Bidwell, Dietz, and Scavia 2013) for distributing and disseminating the information within the community, in particular to those segments of the community which need that particular knowledge to inform some action. Another essential element is the ability to maintain knowledge in the current generations of the community. This requires that the community keep enough cohesion for the knowledge dispersed within the community to meaningfully be said to be part of the entire community, and for the different things known within the community to usefully interact. It also requires that the members of the community have enough trust in the community and its ways of knowing that they work to continue and add to it. If trust within the community breaks down, it is easy for knowledge within the community to not be sufficiently communicated or for it to be abandoned. Finally, for at least many communities, in particular marginalized communities, maintenance requires the ability to legitimate their knowledge in the larger society. Knowledge is sometimes used by a community to become informed about risks and benefits, or to coordinate and guide their actions, but another use for knowledge is to legitimate their actions in certain contexts. This includes being able to reframe knowledge in a way that is understandable to the wider society and advocate for it. It is problematic to expect marginalized communities to legitimate their knowledge in the eyes of the Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 9 dominant society, but it is the case that without this legitimation, it will be difficult for the community to use its knowledge as a reason in support of its goals and projects. Further, knowledge that has no legitimacy within the larger society is vulnerable, because it will be given no support (e.g. in the schools the children in the community may attend) (e.g. Reed and Norgaard 2010). A third essential element of community epistemic capacity is the ability for the community to adapt. By adaptation, I mean the ability for the community to re-deploy its capacities for challenges it has never faced before. This requires that the methodologies by which the community gains knowledge are open to reflection and change as the situation warrants, and open to strategic adoption of methodologies and knowledge from outside. It also requires that knowledge the community already maintains be periodically re-checked against new experiences to see if it is still relevant. For example it is not uncommon for an indegenous community to employ both Traditional Ecological Knowledge as well as scientists within the tribe to address issues (such as new pollution sources) that TEK alone is not effective for understanding or addressing (e.g. McGregor 2009). Without this capacity for adaptation, the community’s epistemic capacities are highly fragile to outside shock, and the community’s knowledge may quickly become outmoded in the face of rapid change. The final essential element of community epistemic capacity I will address is the ability for the community to continue its knowledge. Where maintenance is focused on the current generation of the community, continuance focuses on inter-generational transmission of knowledge and methodologies. Doing so requires an understanding of what is known by the community, the resources necessary to teach future generations with fairly high fidelity, and the ability to create enough buy-in to the community from future generations that they participate in learning their culture’s knowledge and practicing its methodologies. It also requires that the community decide what knowledge and methodologies within its epistemic heritage to continue forward into future generations, and what to either allow to be forgotten, or to adapt in a critical way (for example as an object lesson of how the community has improved). This capacity to choose what to pass on is akin to the concept of “environmental heritage” found in the work of Robert Figueroa, which he argues “Pertains to the meanings and symbols of the past that frame values, practices, and places peoples wish to preserve as members of a community” (2011, 233, emphasis added). Without these elements, a community cannot be said to have significant epistemic capacity. I will argue in the next section that discussions of meaningful participation require coverage of community epistemic capacity or else one cannot guarantee a community’s ability to consent. The Necessity of Capacity It has been argued that community capacity generally is essential to successful environmental management (Habron 2003) and environmental justice (Freudenberg, Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 10 I. Werkheiser Pastor, and Israel 2011). As Freudenberg, Pastor and Israel say, “Increased community capacity can help a community reduce the level and impact of environmental stressors” (128), and so the inverse is presumably also true. However, epistemic capacity and its effects have been insufficiently examined, and so it is perhaps worth arguing for its necessity as well to meaningful consent to environmental risk management. To make this argument I will focus primarily on instances of what has been called “post-normal science,” and for communities with high distrust toward scientists and other experts. This is not the only situation in which community epistemic capacity is important, but it is hopefully a very clear case. When “normal” interactions between science and the public are not good enough to settle a question of risk because “Facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993, 744), we are in a situation described by some as “post-normal” science (e.g. Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993, 1994). At such times, including stakeholders and those who might have useful information is seen as essential (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993, 752–4). However, when input by stakeholders is vital, but these stakeholders have a high distrust of experts, it is more difficult to include them than we might suppose. Whatever the cause of the distrust, be it a long history of prominent abuses (e.g. Deloria 1995; Dwayne et al. 2005; Freimuth et al. 2001; Thomas and Quinn 1991) or rapid loss of trust due to a single incident (e.g. Wynne 1989), these are what Whyte and Crease call in their (2010), “Poisoned-well cases.” Whyte and Crease say that in at least some of these situations, which they define as “Distrust in experts is an explicit and irreducible element in multilateral negotiations over scientific and technical issues,” there is “No hope for a technical argument to succeed” (418). Simple education of the individuals in the community is not a sufficient redress, because it is not merely a lack of understanding or even competence (unless one wants to beg the question and simply assert that understanding and comprehension require endorsing mainstream scientific practice). Rather, people in these so-called “Poisoned-well cases” feel that the science and other expert work being done does not embed their community’s values, standards of evidence, and so on. At one level, the fact that this distrust is oriented around their community implies that addressing their community is an important part of gaining a productive partnership. At another level, when we think of what is required for participation in ways that would lead the public to buy in to the process, we see a deeper need for focusing on and strengthening communities, and in particular strengthening their epistemic capacities. If we imagine a scenario in which the public has low trust in external experts, and feels that their local knowledge is not being represented, merely being consulted and giving consent is unlikely to suffice, even if they meet all of ShraderFrechette’s requirements in Environmental Justice. This is because all they would be able to do is articulate values and beliefs, without grounding either in robust methodologies. Without a methodology and other epistemic capacities, they are not likely to be able to participate meaningfully and influence the research being done, and will either have to abandon some of those values and beliefs in order to Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 11 accept the only research program and findings available (thereby granting an insufficiently informed consent), or act in a way that seems irrational because they cannot give epistemic grounds for rejecting the expert research program (thereby not granting consent at all, but being unable to articulate why this is the right decision for them). In situations such as these, it is necessary for the public to have the epistemic capacity to participate meaningfully by being able to articulate their values and beliefs embedded in theories and methodologies in a way that lets them interpret the information they are being provided so that they can truly be said to be informed enough. Without this it is highly unlikely that they will meet ShraderFrechette’s second requirement in Risk and Rationality. Unless the public can have articulated alternative evaluative assumptions and methodologies, it is impossible to mandate that these be considered. This can only be done at the community level. Complex methodologies relying on robust evaluative assumptions that result in strong prediction and control of a wide variety of situations (such as, for example, the ones found in science) are not the sort of thing developed and held by individuals. Even scientists, despite being individually very well educated and likely to qualify all of Shrader-Frechette’s requirements for giving free informed consent, must rely on their epistemic community of fellow scientists. An isolated climate scientist would presumably not feel that she could give informed enough consent to future sea level changes based on just her observations without access to meta studies of other researchers. For nonscientists, the burden of each member of the community having to separately learn entire methodologies and conduct research is an even more impossible burden. But by distributing the epistemic load among people in the community who are well suited by inclination, time, and resources to do a given epistemic task and share with the community, research becomes possible, both for communities of scientists and non-scientists. Merely listening to communities is not enough. Rather, these communities must have enough epistemic capacity to be what Shrader-Frechette called “Well-calibrated communities of theory holders” (1991, 192). Without epistemic capacities, the expertise on which Sunstein, ShraderFrechette, and other authors rely as an element of distributive justice (the idea that some communities do not have enough access to this expertise), is actually useless for communities with low trust in experts. Community epistemic capacities, particularly for these communities, allow access to expertise to be of use in building free informed consent. Case Studies In giving some examples of the abstract situations described above, we will look first at Popular Epidemiology. It provides examples of successful communities which did not initially have sufficient community epistemic capacity, but which were able to build their epistemic capacity to the point where their knowledge had 12 I. Werkheiser enough legitimacy that they were able to meaningfully participate. We will then look at science shops, which are good examples of a possible alternative to fully developing a community’s own epistemic capacity. In looking at science shops, I will show that, though they are an improvement for the communities over their prior situation, this alternative is insufficient for informed enough consent. Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Popular Epidemiology Popular Epidemiology (PE) is a term describing communities doing their own work to find the source of diseases in their area. PE is a well-developed literature in social science, but one which has been underdeveloped in its philosophical justifications, making it worthwhile to use as an example. Further, at issue are participation, policy, and risk assessment, all themes being discussed and directly involved in questions of justice. In “When the Public Knows Better,” Philip Brown lays out the typical stages of how a community comes together to perform PE and what common responses and outcomes are, using the example of the community of Woburn, Massachusetts, which had suffered from contaminated water: (1) People in a contaminated community notice separately both health effects and pollutants. (2) These residents hypothesize something out of the ordinary, typically a connection between the health effects and the pollutants. (3) Community residents share information, creating a common perspective. (4) Community residents, now a more cohesive group, read, ask around, and talk to government officials and scientific experts about the health effects and the putative contaminants. (5) Residents organize groups to pursue their investigation. (6) Government agencies conduct official studies in response to community groups’ pressure. These studies usually find no association between the contaminants and health effects. (7) Community groups bring in their own experts to conduct a health study and to investigate pollutant sources and pathways. (8) Community groups engage in litigation and confrontation. (9) Community groups press for corroboration of their findings by official experts and agencies (18). Looking at this list, we can begin to see implications for a community’s epistemic capacity and how that is connected to their ability to give informed enough consent and participate meaningfully. The first thing to notice is that the people living in the local area are aware of a problem before anyone else, and often hypothesize the causal link before those in positions of authority are even convinced there is a concern. That residents are the first to be aware of a problem going on in their own community is perhaps not surprising. Members of the Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 13 affected community are well placed to notice that something is wrong, and they are also often in a special position to hypothesize the correct causal agents. This is because their daily practices let them know in a very fine-grained way who in their community is exposed to what and who is particularly vulnerable, and they are far more likely to notice small indicators like rashes or respiratory problems which do not rise to the level of a reported symptom. Most importantly, they have the motive to pursue an investigation when health officials do not think it necessary or affordable. Indeed, Brown comments that it is often the women in the community who first notice a potential problem and begin to deal with it because of their daily practice of caring for the health of the family. So we see already some epistemic capacity for those individual members, but it is not necessarily communityfocused if the information is not shared in knowledge networks. Only when the community can be said to gain knowledge is it a useful capacity for community action. This is what members of the community try to build in steps 3, 5, and 7. Before moving on, it is worth emphasizing that it is certainly also possible that communities will have incorrect hypotheses, though the assumption that they are wrong until proven otherwise which seems to motivate some politicians and scientists is certainly overstating this concern. That they can be incorrect is not necessarily too great a problem; providing that they check their hypotheses against new incoming evidence and are willing to and have the capacity to adapt their beliefs, this is no greater a concern than in academic science. There also may well be parts of a community’s hypotheses which are not particularly falsifiable, but this too is not as great a concern as some might believe it to be. As writers on indigenous sciences like Sandra Harding have pointed out, as long as an epistemic community’s theories are reliable, in that they are significantly better than chance at prediction and successful interaction with the environment, they ought to be respected independent of any unfalsifiable baggage attached along with them (if we didn’t accept this idea we would have to reject much of Western science as well, with its own particular difficult or impossible to falsify assumptions). This adaptation to better enable the community to pursue its goals and interact with its environment can be seen in step 7. The next thing to notice is that the concerns of the community, according to Brown, are often disconfirmed by initial scientific studies. This happens for several reasons. First, the nuanced, personalized data that led the community to draw these conclusions is usually discounted. Second, the scientific studies are often sampled and modeled with assumptions that do not match the community (for example, most exposure and health models are based on an assumed adult, male, white worker). Third, scientific studies are often either performed by the corporations under question, or by overworked government agencies who are heavily influenced by them. Finally, as Brown points out, different values are motivating different standards of evidence: “Although epidemiologists admit to the uncertainties of their work, their usual solution is to err on the side of rejecting environmental causation whereas community residents make the opposite choice” (20). Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 14 I. Werkheiser This approach can be from a paternalistic desire to keep people from panicking, or simply a preference internal to science for false negatives over false positives. As a result of the community’s local knowledge, and the perceived lack of representation of that knowledge in expert scientific methodologies, there is low trust by the public of the EPA and other experts, perhaps rightly so. Yet if participation amounted to merely re-asserting their belief that in fact there was a connection between the pollution and illness, or that they valued clean water, it is unlikely that this would have much effect. Further, it is unlikely that they would be able to maintain this knowledge and continue it. When experts tell the community that there is no connection, the community needs strong internal capacities of maintenance and continuance for that knowledge to not be abandoned, particularly when many members of the community wish the information were not true, perhaps because the increased risks for themselves and their families are difficult to deal with, and perhaps because they benefit financially from that risk, for example by working at the polluting factory. Attempts to develop capacities for maintenance and continuance can be seen in step 5. Moreover, if step 9 is unsuccessful, the communities will need to build up their capacity for maintenance and continuance as they develop their own strategies for mitigating the environmental problems as best they can. The final, and for our purposes most interesting, thing to notice about Brown’s stages of PE is that communities respond to their special epistemological access on the one hand and the uselessness or hostility of dominant scientific institutions on the other by as a group performing studies themselves. In Woburn, Massachusetts, the community did this by informally sampling their fellow community members and the local environment to draw up epidemiological maps, collecting samples to show the EPA, and other personal data gathering methods. The people of Woburn also worked in conjunction with professional scientists to perform more formal studies, and these studies were far more effective at finding toxins in the environment and increasing the probability of a causal link because they were driven by community knowledge. As those formal studies were being done, many people in the community were learning about how epidemiology worked so that as a community, they were able to better participate in the process. It is important to note that this did not happen at the beginning of the process. If it had, the experts they brought on would have been much less effective (as we will see in the next case study), because the community would not have had the necessary capacities to interact with the experts effectively. Taken together, this is an example of the people of Woburn building their community epistemic capacity to the point where it was possible to be informed enough to consent to having the polluters in their community, and to participate in a meaningful way in those policy decisions. In PE, recall that the community forms a sense of itself and organizes in order to make this knowledge and advocate for it. While they are often not granted epistemic authority by those with political power, this is something that they can contest, by arguing for their own special relationship to the land they are discussing, gaining scientific corroboration, using political pressure, media outreach, and any Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 15 of the other techniques of social activism. But until they have this knowledge as an epistemic community, rather than isolated suspicion, there is no chance of having enough epistemic authority to meaningfully participate. As for values recall that the epistemic values in the community, such as what level of uncertainty to accept, whether to tolerate false positives or negatives, informed by other values (such as valuing a clean environment or strongly disvaluing cancer for their children) are an inherent part of their knowledge formation. So by increasing their epistemic capacities, the community is able to better articulate their values and beliefs in ways that will affect research, so that the research can sufficiently inform their decision to consent or not. Thus building epistemic capacity is an important part of achieving meaningful participation, and essential for the community and its members to give informed enough consent. Science Shops It might be objected at this point that one does not have to build up the epistemic capacity of the community, because I am wrong when I say that communities need epistemic capacities to interact productively with experts. Perhaps it is possible to have proxies who understand the values of the community but do the epistemic “heavy lifting” for them. This would be in keeping with ShraderFrechette’s (1991) call to fund alternative studies that embed the perspectives and values of the community. In the example of PE above, the community of Woburn was able to build its own capacity and thereby democratically participate in risk assessments and policy decisions, but perhaps this need not necessarily be the case. A promising alternative to building epistemic capacity in a community is found in the model of “science shops” which are prevalent throughout Europe—non-profit groups which facilitate the interaction of communities and academic scientists. Community organizations come with practical concerns and are able to get the formal studies they need to act. The science shop helps by putting their concerns into the sort of formal question that might be usefully answered with empirical research, and connects them with scientists who have agreed to volunteer their time to the project. According to Irwin (1995), one science shop in Northern Ireland, in three years of operation, received requests from over 60 different community groups on questions concerning “Health/environment (39), community development (25), welfare (15), work/training (11), [and] homelessness (9)” (162). Irwin also reports that the science shop in Northern Ireland is very popular with those who have used it. Interestingly, the groups often wanted not new information that only scientists could give them, but “The legitimatory orientation … to ‘prove what you already know’” (162–3). A charitable reading of this is that local knowledge is often the first to recognize a problem, thereby benefiting researchers, but measuring its extent and granting the knowledge formal legitimacy (stage 7 in Brown’s list) is a powerful gift researchers can give back. Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 16 I. Werkheiser Science shops can give a community some useful tools for becoming informed enough to give meaningful consent, but this participation is still partial as long as the knowledge production is not integrated into the community. This forces the community to be dependent on academic science or government institutions. Science shops, relying as they do on academics taking over the question from the community, suffer from the problems we have been discussing in this paper. One problem is that, as Irwin points out, the public often cannot have their questions taken seriously or performed the way they want them to be: “Science dismisses externally-generated issues, questions and understandings as irrelevance and ignorance. Public groups find science inaccessible” (161). Additionally, those scientists who do make the effort to do the research the public groups want find their results falling on deaf academic ears (165). This is hardly full participation. Further, recall the earlier statement by Irwin that the public often comes to science shops looking for confirmation of what they already believe. While I presented a charitable reading of this above, another reading is that because the science being used is external to the community, it can be used by the community neither to generate new hypotheses, nor to reflexively develop their own theories. Instead, they can at best provide a new hypothesis and perhaps some data to already-existing methodologies and bodies of theory, with embedded values which may not match that of the community. If science shops worked instead to build epistemic capacity in the communities they were serving, the results would be better both for the communities’ ability to become informed enough, and for the objectivity (per Shrader-Frechette’s definition of the term) of research generated. Building Epistemic Capacity If we acknowledge the necessity of epistemic capacity for a community to meaningfully participate in assessments and decisions, and if we agree that meaningful participation is important for justice, we might well ask how these capacities can be enhanced. This is particularly true when a new “community” has been recently created out of emerging risks or shifting demographics. Whether starting from scratch or working with extant communities, it is within the remit of many policy organizations, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US, to enhance community epistemic capacity, if indeed it is a required element of informed enough consent (EPA Public Participation Guide 2014; HUD Demonstration Act 1993). Though it is beyond the scope of this paper to lay out detailed policies, and indeed such policies would vary radically in different contexts (both historical contingencies and the current state of the community’s capacity) and for different actors (internal or external to the community), it is possible to make a few observations and suggestions from the theory and the case studies. One observation, coming out of the example of PE, is that it is difficult to build epistemic capacity as a general good without a specific focus. Without a Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 17 motivating problem, the goal of building a community’s epistemic capacity must compete with the many other goals and responsibilities placed on the community, and it is unlikely that many members of the community will have the necessary buy-in to this particular goal for it to be successful. Instead, when a community or public agency is already responding to a crisis, that is the time to build up the community’s epistemic capacity. As the crisis is addressed, it would be easy to create networks and institutions which disappeared when the crisis is over. Instead, activists, policy makers, and organizations working with or within the community should see each issue motivating the community as an opportunity to build up the epistemic capacities not only around the particular issue, but in a way that will leave the community with more capacity to apply to other problems down the road. Another observation, coming out of the example of science shops, is that epistemic capacity is not something modular that can just be bolted on or given as a resource for the community. Recall the three elements of gaining knowledge in the definition of community epistemic capacity. Even if this new epistemic resource is very popular (has high buy-in), and is very effective (because it was created by experts outside the community), if it is not also understood by members of the community, it will not be as useful as it could be, because the community will not use it to structure their epistemic goals in the first place. It is also, of course, less likely to have their interests embedded in it. Examples of building epistemic capacity that follows the two above observations can be found in the cases of the Anishinabek/Ontario Fisheries Resource Center (McGregor 2009) and the Walpole Island Heritage Center (Van Wynsberghe 2002). These centers not only conduct environmental assessments which integrate TEK with scientific knowledge, but they also work hard to increase the epistemic capacity of the communities. In the case of the Fisheries Resource Center, the biologists solicit and support the community to participate at all stages, and over time this has built understandings of the assessments which let the participation be more effective. In the case of the Walpole Island Heritage Center, when external experts are brought in to conduct research that the community cannot currently carry out, the community shadows the experts to learn how to do what they are doing, so that the community can critique the methods, and adopt them in the future if they see fit. These two examples also embody some of Freudenberg, Pastor, and Israel’s (2011) strategies for increasing community capacity. While their list includes some elements which are not relevant to building epistemic capacities, some are: Training and Technology Transfer, Technical Assistance, and Empowerment Approaches. These cannot exist in isolation, but together can be part of a valuable strategy for increasing a community’s epistemic capacity. McGregor (2009) and Van Wynsberghe (2002) both discuss limitations to these models and ways in which the participation and epistemic capacity building could be more robust. These are not perfect solutions, but rather examples of real-world attempts to address this difficult problem. 18 I. Werkheiser Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Conclusion Meaningful participation can make risk characterizations and decisions “more democratic, legitimate, and informative” (National Research Council 1996, 79). When communities with sufficient degrees of epistemic capacities exist, meaningful participation and informed consent from the community are possible. When community epistemic capacities do not exist, it is not possible for a community to participate and give consent, and participation and consent must then laboriously include every member of the community, or rest on methodologically questionable assumptions built into statistical sampling (Shrader-Frechette 2010). Therefore, it is within the remit of many organizations to increase epistemic capacities in the communities from which they are trying to obtain consent. This paper leaves unanswered several important questions. For example, there is the practical question for policy makers of “threshold”—we have seen that epistemic capacities admit to degrees, and so the meaningfulness of the participation by a community will be roughly proportional to the level of their epistemic capacity, but what is the minimum threshold? Further, while the suggestions in this paper of the need for epistemic capacity building and a few directions in which it might be pursued are meant to have practical policy implications, structural critiques of dominant institutions might suggest that these kinds of changes are impossible, or at least will not be achieved by supporters of the status quo. Epistemic capacity concerns arise from a complex vision of society which might not be transferable to liberal policy applications. Despite these concerns, however, we can see that to the extent community epistemic capacity is necessary for informed enough consent and, therefore, meaningful participation. Epistemic capacity must be pursued on justice grounds. The better the capacities the better able a community will be to participate. Acknowledgement The author wishes to acknowledge the Slaughter Research Fellowship through the Philosophy Department at Michigan State University for funding the completion of this paper, Dr. Dan Steel for helping with an early draft of the paper, and Dr. Kyle Whyte for helping throughout the writing process. References Arquette, M., M. Cole, K. Cook, B. LaFrance, M. Peters, J. Ransom, E. Sargent, V. Smoke, and A. Stairs. 2002. Holistic risk-based environmental decision making: A native perspective. Environmental health perspectives 110 (2): 259–64. Beauchamp, T. L., and J. F. Childress. 1994. Principles of biomedical ethics. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Bidwell, D., T. Dietz, and D. Scavia. 2013. Fostering knowledge networks for climate adaptation. Nature Climate Change 3: 610–1. Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 Social Epistemology 19 Brown, P. 1993. When the public knows better: Popular epidemiology challenges the system. Environment 35 (8): 16–41. Chaskin, R. J. 2001. Building community capacity: A definitional framework and case studies from a comprehensive community initiative. Urban Affairs Review 36 (3): 91–323. Chess, C., and K. Purcell. 1999. Public participation and the environment: Do we know what works? Environmental Science and Technology 33 (16): 2685–92. Cole, D. H. 2009. Regulatory cost-benefit analysis and collective action. Working Paper Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law. Deloria, V. 1995. Red Earth, white lies: Native Americans and the myth of scientific fact. New York: Scribner. Derr, P., R. Goble, R. E. Kasperson, and R. W. Kates. 1981. Worker/public protection: The double standard. Environment 23 (9): 6–36. Dwayne, B. T., L. A. Isaac, and T. A. LaVeist. 2005. The legacy of Tuskegee and trust in medical care: Is Tuskegee responsible for race differences in mistrust of medical care? Journal of the National Medical Association 97 (7): 951–6. Elliot, K. 2011. Is a little pollution good for you? New York: Oxford University Press. EPA Public Participation Guide. 2014 [cited January 2014]. Available from www.epa.gov. Faden, R. R., and T. L. Beauchamp. 1986. A history and theory of informed consent. New York: Oxford University Press. Figueroa, R. M. 2011. Indigenous peoples and cultural losses. In The Oxford handbook of climate change and society, edited by John Dryzek, Richard Norgaard, and David Schlosberg, pp. 232–51. New York: Oxford University Press. Freimuth, V., S. C. Quinn, S. B. Thomas, G. Cole, E. Zook, and T. Duncan. 2001. African Americans’ views on research and the Tuskegee Syphilis study. Social Science and Medicine 52 (5): 797–808. Freudenberg, N. 2004. Community capacity for environmental health promotion: Determinants and implications for practice. Health Education & Behavior 31 (4): 472–90. Freudenberg, N., M. Pastor, and B. Israel. 2011. Strengthening community capacity to participate in making decisions to reduce disproportionate environmental exposures. American Journal of Public Health 101 (S1): 123–30. Funtowicz, S., and J. R. Ravetz. 1993. Science for the post-normal age. Futures 25 (7): 739–55. ———. 1994. Uncertainty, complexity and post-normal science. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 13 (12): 1881–5. Goodman, R. M., M. A. Speers, K. Mcleroy, S. Fawcett, M. Kegler, E. Parker, S. R. Smith, T. D. Sterling, and N. Wallerstein. 1998. Identifying and defining the dimensions of community capacity to provide a basis for measurement. Health Education & Behavior 25 (3): 258–78. Habron, G. 2003. Role of adaptive management for watershed councils. Environmental Management 31 (1): 29–41. HUD Demonstration Act: H.R. 2517. 1993. US Government Printing Office [cited January 2014]. Available from www.ngpo.gov. Irwin, A. 1995. Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. New York: Routledge. Kasperson, R. E. 1986. Six propositions for public participation and their relevance for risk communication. Risk Analysis 6 (3): 275–81. McGregor, D. 2009. Linking traditional knowledge and environmental practice in Ontario. Journal of Canadian Studies 43 (3): 69–100. Minkler, M., V. B. Vàsquez, M. Tajik, and D. Petersen. 2008. Promoting environmental justice through community-based participatory research: The role of community and partnership capacity. Health Education & Behavior 35 (1): 119–37. Murphy, R. 2012. Enhancing the role of public interest organizations in rulemaking via pre-notice transparency. The Wake Forest Law Review 47: 681–704. Downloaded by [Michigan State University] at 07:57 23 February 2015 20 I. Werkheiser National Research Council. 1994. Building consensus through risk management of the department of energy’s environmental remediation program. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. National Research Council, T. Dietz, and P. C. Stern, eds. 2008. Public participation in environmental assessment and decision making. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. National Research Council, E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, P. C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E. Weber, eds. 2002. The drama of the commons. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. National Research Council, P. C. Stern, and Harvey V. Fineberg, eds. 1996. Understanding risk: Informing decisions in a democratic society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Norton, B., K. Mcleroy, J. Burdine, R. Felix, and A. Dorsey. 2002. Community capacity: Concept, theory and methods. In Emerging Theories in Health Promotion Practice and Research, edited by R. DiClemente, R. Crosby, and M. Kegler, pp. 194–227. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ranco, D. J., C. A. O’Neill, J. Donatuto, and B. L. Harper. 2011. Environmental Justice, American Indians and the cultural dilemma: Developing environmental management for tribal health and well-being. Environmental Justice 4 (4): 221–30. Reed, R., and K. Norgaard. 2010. Salmon feeds our people: Challenging dams on the Klamath river. In Indigenous peoples and conservation: From rights to resource management, 1st ed., edited by K. Painemilla and A. Rylands, pp. 7–16. Arlington, VA: Conservation International. Shrader-Frechette, K. S. 1991. Risk and rationality: Philosophical foundations for populist reforms. Berkeley: California University Press. ———. 2002. Environmental justice: Creating equality, reclaiming democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. Analyzing public participation in risk analysis: How the wolves of environmental injustice hide in the sheep’s clothing of science. Environmental Justice 3 (4): 119–23. Sunstein, C. R. 2002. Risk and reason: Safety, law, and the environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Teuber, A. 1990. Justifying risk. Daedalus 119 (4): 235–54. Thomas, S. B., and S. C. Quinn. 1991. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932 to 1972: Implications for HIV education and AIDS risk education programs in the black community. American Journal of Public Health 81 (11): 1498–505. Thomson, J. 1985. Imposing risk to breathe freely: Risk, consent, and air Totowa, pp. 124–40. NJ: Rowman & Allanheld. Van Wynsberghe, R. 2002. AlterNatives: Community, identity, and environmental justice on Walpole Island. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Wallerstein, N. B., and B. Duran. 2006. Using community-based participatory research to address health disparities. Health Promotion Practice 7 (312): 312–23. Whyte, K., and R. P. Crease. 2010. Trust, expertise, and the philosophy of science. Synthese 177: 411–25. Wynne, B. 1989. Sheep farming after Chernobyl: A case study in communicating scientific information. Environment 31 (2): 11–39. Yosie, T. F., and T. D. Herbst. 1998. Using stakeholder processes in environmental decisionmaking: An evaluation of lessons learned, key issues, and future challenges. Washington, DC: Ruder Finn.