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São Paulo’s Peripheries: Transformations in Modes of Collective Life
Paulo’s peripheries were once exclusively the spaces where the poor working classes inhabited their autoconstructed houses and organized themselves into insurgent social movements. In the last two decades, these spaces have changed considerably. The mode of collective life that was based on autoconstruction, industrialism, migration, the dignity of labor, a certain hierarchy of gender roles,…
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Dams on the Mekong: Cumulative Sediment Starvation
The Mekong River, largely undeveloped prior to 1990, is undergoing rapid dam construction. Seven dams are under construction on the upper mainstem in China and 133 are planned for the Lower Mekong River and tributaries. These dams will trap sediment that formerly was transported downstream to the lower river and delta. The delta is dependent…
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Analyzing Transportation Equity Impacts using Activity-based Travel Demand Models
Activity-based travel demand models can be useful tools for understanding the individual level equity impacts of transportation plans, because of their ability to generate disaggregate transportation measures. However, these capabilities have yet to be fully explored in public practice. In our research we use a general framework for performing transportation equity analysis using activity-based travel…
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Photovoltaics Investment and California’s Property Assessed Clean Energy Program
Growing global awareness of climate change has ushered in a new era demanding policy, financial and behavioral innovations to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. Dramatic price decreases in solar photovoltaics (PV) and public policy have underwritten the expansion of solar power, now accounting for the largest share of renewable energy in California…
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AppCivist: New Social Media Platforms for Democratic Assembly and Participatory Citizenship
The AppCivist research project studies how new social media can support democratic assembly and participatory citizenship. The initiative is further rooted in the principles of social activism in that it aims to provide citizens with software systems that help them articulate projects, deliberate directly among themselves, and mobilize action. AppCivist is a platform for democratic…
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“Transparency Fixes” for Local Public Services: Field Experimental and Ethnographic Evidence from Bangalore’s Water Sector
Worldwide, 400 million people rely on intermittent water, often receiving services only a few days a week for a few hours. While addressing the underlying causes of water intermittency and unpredictability tends to be very costly, low-cost informational interventions can potentially help households to cope with service unpredictability. Alleviating coping costs may also change the…
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Fungible Life: Ethnicity and Experimentation in Biomedical Asia
The Singapore National Institute of Health (NIH) policy of racialization-as-inclusion in research was a critical factor in the building of Asian DNA databases at Biopolis, an emerging biomedical hub in Singapore. Citing variability in DNA and populations in the Asian region, Singaporean biostatisticians challenge DeCode Genetics of Iceland as an exemplary model of genomic research.…
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Groundwater Arsenic Remediation Pilot Plant in West Bengal
Close to 100 million people in rural South Asia are exposed to high levels of arsenic through groundwater used for drinking. Many deployed arsenic remediation technologies quickly fail because they are not maintained, repaired, accepted, or affordable. It is therefore imperative that arsenic remediation technologies be evaluated for their ability to perform within a sustainable and…