Papers by Rachael Wakefield-Rann
Anthropocene Review, 2021
The Anthropocene literature has brought attention to the plasticity and porosity of Earth systems... more The Anthropocene literature has brought attention to the plasticity and porosity of Earth systems under the dramatic impact of human activities. Moving across scales of analysis, this paper focuses attention on Anthropogenic effects at the micro-scale of genomic regulation, neuronal functioning and cellular activity. Building on expanding dialogues at the interface of Anthropocene science, biogeography, microbiology and ecotoxicology, we mobilize epigenetic findings to show increasing evidence of Anthropogenic changes in plants, animals, and human bodies. Treating human-induced changes at the macro-global and micro-biological scales as part of an intertwined process has implications for how these problems are conceptualised and addressed. While we are sceptics about major geo-bio-social syntheses, we believe that agile social-scientific tools can facilitate interaction across disciplines without denying unevenness, and differences. If rightly contextualized in broad anthropological and social science frameworks, biosocial work on epigenetics offers a compelling avenue to make detectable the “slow violence” of everyday pollution, racism, inequalities, and the disproportionate impact of the Anthropocene on the poor and vulnerable. Consolidating work at the Anthropocene/biology interface has potential to offer a richer and more complete picture of the present crisis at the macro and micro- scale alike.
Social Theory and Health, 2018
The postwar introduction of new chemicals to consumer products created a range of complex environ... more The postwar introduction of new chemicals to consumer products created a range of complex environmental health issues. Despite recent evidence demonstrating the issues associated with using particular chemicals in the home, responses from industry and regulators have failed to account for the complex ways that chemicals interact with each other, humans and microorganisms to cause harm. This paper draws together scientific and social science literature to make two key contributions: first, it demonstrates why investigating everyday practices will be crucial to improve knowledge of how human/ environment interactions in the home are contributing to certain health conditions; second, it draws on examples of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals to show how these health conditions cannot be addressed by replacing individual products, or chemicals, as many toxic ingredients have become central to the functionality of interdependent networks of products, and the routines they enable. By failing to engage with these issues, future research and planning to establish healthy homes will not be able to account for these crucial sources of harm. We conclude that further research addressing indoor environmental health should expand the boundaries of inquiry across disciplines and knowledge perspectives to analyse how social practices structure micro-scale interactions between humans, microbes and chemicals, in the home.
BioSocieties, 2019
In the post-war period, the health risks posed by indoor environments have both transformed and c... more In the post-war period, the health risks posed by indoor environments have both transformed and challenged notions of environmental health centred on pathogenic germs. The composition of home spaces, particularly in developed nations, has been fundamentally altered by the introduction of formerly industrial chemicals to everyday products and building materials. Further, the changing nature of building design, cleaning practices and urban life have altered the ‘microbiomes’ of homes, contributing to a rise in certain immune system conditions. This paper contends that to begin to address these concerns, the microscopic elements of ‘indoor ecosystems’, and how they are created and maintained, must become a focal point for research. It proposes an approach that integrates social practice theories and multispecies ethnography to investigate the cumulative composition constitution of indoor spaces. Findings detail the application of this approach to research into the domestic hygiene practices of parents with young children in Sydney, Australia. This approach highlights crucial assumptions about the ways micro-scale agency is embedded in everyday domestic practices that are contributing to sub-optimal indoor environments.
Human Ecology Review, 2018
Recent research suggests that the greatest threat to children's health from home environments acr... more Recent research suggests that the greatest threat to children's health from home environments across much of the industrialized world may no longer be pathogenic microbes, but impoverished microbial communities and the chemicals used in everyday products, including those for cleaning. This paper proposes that concepts of hygiene should be updated, given this reorientation of harm. However, little research has been conducted, which a) integrates knowledge from the diverse disciplinary fields concerned with indoor environments (such as microbiology, chemistry, and design), and b) examines how individuals conceptualize and enact hygiene to create healthier indoor environments for their families, including the extent to which their practices achieve this. To gain insight into factors influencing how hygiene is enacted in the home, as well as the consequent effects on the composition of indoor environments, it is necessary to transgress traditional disciplinary approaches to investigate indoor environmental health and integrate knowledge from experts and lay people who inhabit these spaces. To do this, recent scientific and design literature addressing key determinants of environmental health in homes are consulted. This is combined with qualitative research into the ways in which parents define, perform, and measure hygiene 1
Human Ecology Review, 2018
Indoor spaces have not traditionally been considered the domain of human ecology. They have been ... more Indoor spaces have not traditionally been considered the domain of human ecology. They have been the subject of cultural, architectural, and sociological inquiry, and more recently the site at which various pathogenic or toxic encounters may be studied; yet, these concerns have rarely been investigated as part of one unified and codependent ecology. This special issue aims to remedy this dislocation by beginning a conversation between a range of disciplinary perspectives concerned with the indoors. This ambition is not only linked to a desire to articulate and connect multiple interacting variables operative in indoor spaces, but also to address both a number of factors that are increasingly creating indoor environmental conditions that are suboptimal for human habitation, and the broader more-than-human ecosystems in which they are situated. Although certainly not exhaustive in scope, the research presented in this special issue provides an exemplary profile of situated knowledge that must form the basis of future, integrative, transdisciplinary research into indoor ecologies. Spanning design, architecture, social and human ecology, environmental psychology, sociology, mycology, biotechnology, spatial sciences, statistics, engineering, philosophy, and "lay" and experiential knowledge perspectives, this special issue uncovers a number of the challenges and fertile points of overlap across epistemological approaches and areas of concern within the indoors. The goal of this issue is to highlight the points of divergence, and, more crucially, the points of convergence from which a new transdisciplinary approach to indoor research can emerge.
Human Ecology Review, 2018
This article makes the argument that Peter Sloterdijk's philosophy provides a useful and thought-... more This article makes the argument that Peter Sloterdijk's philosophy provides a useful and thought-provoking basis for studies of contemporary indoor ecologies. Sloterdijk's philosophy is distinctively attentive to the various environments in which humans exist and of the ecological situation of beings in general. The notions of interiority explored in Sloterdijk's work, particularly the third volume of his spheres trilogy Spheres III: Foams (2004, 2016), provide important tools for conceptualizing the changing nature of indoor spaces and contemporary modes of being in the world. Sloterdijk's approach to philosophical analysis exhibits a number of interrelated advantages that mesh well with the ambitions of human ecology, particularly in relation to indoor ecological conditions. These include his sustained conceptual exploration of technological and scientific developments, his distinctive use of rhetoric and philosophy in the characterization of human agency, and the close attention he pays to the relationship between being and design. This article unpacks the value of these perspectives through a sustained attention to Spheres III: Foams and aims to demonstrate why Sloterdijk's work provides an invaluable philosophical tool kit to foreground and unite scholarship in diverse fields exploring the relationship between interior spaces, human perception , and society.
The core values of both luxury and sustainability are at odds with a consumer culture characteris... more The core values of both luxury and sustainability are at odds with a consumer culture characterised by cheap, disposable products and undervalued natural resources. Although some product categories within the luxury goods sector have upheld the values of quality and durability, others, such as personal care, have come to rely on materials and processes that are harmful to ecosystems and human health. The luxury personal care industry trades on qualities of purity, freshness, beauty and the 'natural'. However, the industry remains unsustainable through its continued use of single-use plastic packaging and particular synthetic chemical additives. For this to change, the way in which personal care products are delivered and administered must be fundamentally redesigned. This chapter presents a case study of luxury personal care company LUSH, and examines how its innovative approach to service design could provide a genuinely sustainable model for luxury personal care companies, and potentially the broader industry. The central elements of this model include local production, 'naked' products, short expiry dates, and innovative retail design.
Food security is becoming one of the most significant political, economic and environmental chall... more Food security is becoming one of the most significant political, economic and environmental challenges faced by governments around the world. Despite Australia's wealth and abundant agricultural resources, this issue affects Australian cities. In order to develop effective strategies to decrease the vulnerability of Australian cities to food supply disturbances, the nature of food flows between cities and the agro-ecosystems upon which they depend must first be understood. Australia's urban populations tend to be affluent and have specific expectations regarding the types of food they believe should be available to them all year round. The corporations that supply these consumers draw on food sourced from remote agro-ecosystems with little regard for local or seasonal produce. The vulnerability of a city's food supply therefore no longer depends on local constraints affecting its immediate hinterlands, but on ecological and socio-political factors affecting the remote regions from which its food is sourced. Therefore, urban food security is largely contingent on the specific interrelationships, dependencies and constraints that have developed within the national and international food production system.
Food Waste in Australian Households: Why does it occur?
Conference Presentations by Rachael Wakefield-Rann
How everyday living practices structure the microecologies of homes, with a focus on Sydney Austr... more How everyday living practices structure the microecologies of homes, with a focus on Sydney Australia.
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Papers by Rachael Wakefield-Rann
Conference Presentations by Rachael Wakefield-Rann