Brownfield Research Article

Overview: To put into practice some of the techniques and writing genres we’ve explored, including multispecies ethnography, land use planning, as well as concepts including pollution, remediation, landscape, and slow violence. To create a multigenre project that combines research, proposals, fieldwork, and digital/visual evidence. 

Instructions: Using brownfield data available through the EPA and the City of Buffalo Environmental Remediation and Information websites (or another municipality’s website), you will select a brownfield to visit and document. Take photographs – what does this space look like? What kinds of plant/animal species can you see? What evidence of human activity do you see in the brownfield? What kinds of communities surround the brownfield? Walk around your site; document it. 

Look into what the history of the brownfield is. What industries, etc, did that land sustain? What kinds of contamination is present? What measures are being taken for remediation? How is the community involved? What kinds of native species flourished here? Imagine that you are working with this brownfield site. What kinds of remediation would you propose? 

Compile your findings into a formal research paper, including three peer-reviewed sources (in addition to governmental/non-profit sources). Your paper must include at least one original photograph of your chosen site. 

As you write, think of the biologist’s abandoned lot in Annihilation (pp. 156-157): what kinds of lives proliferate at the brownfield level? Why do the creatures in that lot seem watchful, showing “tales of bad-faith encounters in human-occupied territory?” Are brownfields like this lot no longer human-occupied? What do you make of the tire tracks in the biologist’s lot, and the “tracks” of other contaminants in your chosen brownfield? If places like this are usually invisible, according to the biologist, what needs to be done to make them visible? In other words, how can we blend the technical and cultural modes of communication? That is your task for this major assignment.

Assessment: 

–        Formal research paper, including introduction and thesis where you propose a specific remediation measure for your chosen site

–        Historical and ethnographic background to set up your proposed measure

–        Incorporation of at least one original photograph of the site

–        Use of three peer-reviewed sources, and at least one governmental/non-profit website or database

–        Argumentation: topic sentences, transitions, evidence integration

–        Spelling and grammar