Science by Citizen in Mexico City: Creating an Environmental Knowledge Regime out of Thick and Dirty Air

This presentation investigates the role of citizen science in catalyzing the emergence of a new environmental knowledge regime in Mexico City during the last third of the twentieth century, when air pollution was at its most offensive. A combination of human and natural factors spanning centuries created Mexico City’s late-twentieth-century air quality crisis, but already poor conditions deteriorated immensely following a three-decade state-sponsored industrialization campaign from 1940 to 1970. Environmental concerns, especially those pertaining to the city’s air, rarely figured into decision-making processes or forecasting activities because prevailing politics preempted in-depth scientific investigation into these matters. As a result, government officials either downplayed or ignored them completely. In response to the lackadaisical attitudes espoused by those in power, I demonstrate that citizen science became essential for democratizing information about the perceived health effects of air pollution. Science by citizen was forged from sensory perceptions based on visual, olfactory, and audio cues, and was widely publicized by journalists, novelists, and artists, who also spoke out about the dirty air ingested by millions of citizens daily. Using editorials, opinion pieces, cartoons, and literary sources, I highlight expressions of feelings – the offhanded remarks, jokes, scathing criticisms, shedding light as well on the more tempered reactions or purely inquisitive viewpoints – that proved pivotal in unmasking an unfolding environmental crisis. I engage frameworks common to the history of emotions, particularly those that understand feelings both as socially constructed and as windows into changing social dialogues within the metropolitan community. In this, I write against popular conceptions of citizens as apathetic to or ignorant of the effects of environmental conditions that are not easily perceivable. Furthermore, in its focus on the emotional orders characterizing post-1970 Mexico City, my paper presents an alternative to the political/policy histories that typically dominate in the study of pollution.