Anne Camilla Bellows
Rutgers University
Office of International Programs
172 College Ave. P.O. Box 5062
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-5062
USA
TEL: 908/932-8551
FAX: 908/932-1144
My goal is to present data from the Women and Environmental Health Project in Silesia which addresses the ways in which women target their environmental activism. The paper considers whether or not those targets contribute directly to pollution in the region or if they are intermediaries.
This inquiry considers the growing activism in Silesia within the context of a changing socio-economic structure. Industry, the main source of pollution, is privatizing. Yet activism is organized mostly through NGOs and citizen groups which focus on local governments, educational institutions, and the media.
In my home country, the U.S., local governments often have less power than industry. It appears we either believe that industry in a more productive target, or we believe that the "local state" has limited effectiveness (or commitment) to promote change, or both.
It appears that what we do in common is network. The resulting power transcends the bounded physical space of our communities; it builds on our common interests, those wound in and among our important differences. With this networking we can, for example, learn strategies to deal with both the private sector polluters and collaborative government spheres.
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