This Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant will examine the emergence of sustainable stormwater management practices in three U.S. cities in the last fifteen years. Urban stormwater networks provide a unique opportunity to study the complex relationship between technical networks, humans, and the environment. Since the late 1980s, a wide range of actors, including environmental activists, engineers, and municipal officials, has developed new approaches to managing urban water flows in particular metropolitan regions that reflect notions of sustainability and sustainable development. These efforts challenge the centralized technical logic inherent in conventional infrastructure services and introduce strategies of distributed management, source control, and citizen involvement to reduce construction and operating costs, minimize environmental impacts, and improve urban livability. This study will examine sustainable stormwater management activities from a sociotechnical perspective using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as the theoretical foundation. Applying ANT to the study of urban socio-technical networks requires an indepth examination of site-specific political, social, historical, and cultural conditions as well as the material aspects of cities such as climate, geology, hydrology, and biology. ANT is particularly well-suited to this study because it highlights the relationships between material, social, and technical systems. The approach emphasizes space and the contextual nature of technological development while paralleling the ecological/relational perspective of urban sustainability advocates. The research project will consist of in-depth case studies of urban watersheds in three metropolitan areas in the United States: Seattle, Washington; Washington, D.C; and Austin, Texas. Data sources will include historical documents such as engineering reports and municipal plans, sociological data from in-depth interviews with key actors, and geographical data from GIS analysis and field observations. These data sources will be triangulated with theoretical and technical literature using qualitative content analysis software to study how stormwater management in these regions is being reinterpreted through the lenses of sustainability and sustainable management. The overarching goal of the study is to describe and critique the complex sociotechnical relationships inherent in urban metabolic processes. This study will bridge the disciplines of urban studies and Science & Technology Studies and is founded on the premise that new logics of design and operation for urban infrastructure networks require a deep understanding of the relationship between technical networks and their material and social contexts. The study will demonstrate the utility of an STS approach to urban studies while also providing additional normative data to further develop ANT as a sociotechnical research approach. Finally, the research will add to existing studies of relational theories by examining the commonalities between ANT scholars and sustainability advocates. At a larger level, the study will serve as an opportunity to assess different interpretations of urban sustainability and sustainable development. The research will critique activities that are aimed at changing sociotechnical urban networks and provide a detailed understanding of the social and material implications of shifting towards more sustainable forms of urban life.
