Resisting the Discourse of Modernity: Rationality Versus Emotion in Hazardous Waste Siting
通过一个社区抵制危险废物设施选址的案例，研究现代性支持者与怀疑者之间的话语冲突，揭示理性假设在公共决策中的局限，适合关注环境冲突与公众参与的研究者。
One community's resistance to the projected siting of a hazardous waste facility provides a case study of clashing discourse between modernity's champions and its sceptics. The events and outcomes of this case raise questions about the widespread assumption that science, reason and rationality are necessarily the bases for good decisions in society. This study highlights the contemporary citizen, deeply sceptical of the rational state and modern business practice, and fearful that personal and communal identity will be threatened by forces over which local residents have no control. In this case, site developers and community members engaged in numerous rhetorical exchanges. The developers conducted their side of the discourse according to the tenets of reason and rationality. The community, however, imposed emotional interpretations on the situation, thus radically undermining the possibilities of communicative rationality and challenging the tacit `rules' of modern discourse. The public debate between the protagonists revealed emergent themes of identity disruption, mistrust and polarization.