GLOBALSMOG

Air pollution is a global environmental and health problem. Although it has become a major concern in the large cities of the Global South, few of them manage to tackle this pollution effectively. This multidisciplinary project proposes to better understand what causes such hindrance by analyzing the perceptions of this public health problem, the orientations of public action and the obstacles to its implementation in ten African and Asian cities. Bringing together specialists in urban societies, health policies and territorial governance, this project investigates the transnational circulation of global health issues and models of public policy and interventions, the place of scientific knowledge in the framing of issues and solutions, and the modes of governance of urban systems and territorialization that accompany the management of this issue. The chosen approach proposes to analyse together the technical processes that produce knowledge on air quality and health (monitoring, epidemiology, norms and standards of risk assessment) and their societal appropriation at the local level. To this end, the methodology of the project relies on the production of ethnographic data, acquired through long fieldworks, and with the assistance of multiple local partners. This approach makes it possible to grasp in detail the interplay of actors involved in the production of data and the interfaces between science and public action. It also allows for taking a close and informed perspective on the way in which scientific knowledge, but also collective representations and power relations, influence governance processes on a problem made complex by the fact that it intersects with a diversity of economic sectors (mobility, industry, energy, agriculture) and levels of government (from local to international). To account for these processes, the project proposes a reasoned comparison between ten cities particularly impacted by air pollution, in Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia. These ten case studies are subjected to the same interpretative grid, constructed jointly in a multidisciplinary framework. The expected results are to deepen knowledge of the governance processes of urban issues associated with health and the environment. This project will allow for a better understanding of the difficulties encountered by cities in the Global South in governing this major problem for their development and the well-being of their population, and to develop more appropriate modes of action.