Inverted Quarantine: Individual Response to Collective Fear

Location

King Building 337

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-29-2016 4:00 PM

End Date

4-29-2016 5:15 PM

Abstract

In Shopping Our Way to Safety (2007), sociologist Andrew Szasz coined the term “inverted quarantine” to describe how Americans react to the changing natural environment. Inverted quarantine, or the impulse to remove oneself from perceived environmental dangers, often manifests in consumption behavior such as consuming only organic food, drinking filtered or bottled water, moving from a city to a suburb, or even being enclosed in a gated community. Although inverted quarantine may result in some form of protection, in the long run it is unsustainable in the face of the changing natural environment. Through investigations in literature and in-depth interviews with Ohio farmers, Oberlin College students, and parents in Fairfield County, Connecticut, this study examines different ways that environmental dangers are perceived and addressed across three different demographics.

Notes

Session III, Panel 15 - Decisions, Decisions: Investigations of Hunches, Attitudes, and Responses
Moderator: Afia Ofori-Mensa, Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Africana Studies

Full text thesis available here.

Major

Sociology

Advisor(s)

Greggor Mattson, Sociology

Project Mentor(s)

Christie Parris, Sociology

April 2016

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Apr 29th, 4:00 PM Apr 29th, 5:15 PM

Inverted Quarantine: Individual Response to Collective Fear

King Building 337

In Shopping Our Way to Safety (2007), sociologist Andrew Szasz coined the term “inverted quarantine” to describe how Americans react to the changing natural environment. Inverted quarantine, or the impulse to remove oneself from perceived environmental dangers, often manifests in consumption behavior such as consuming only organic food, drinking filtered or bottled water, moving from a city to a suburb, or even being enclosed in a gated community. Although inverted quarantine may result in some form of protection, in the long run it is unsustainable in the face of the changing natural environment. Through investigations in literature and in-depth interviews with Ohio farmers, Oberlin College students, and parents in Fairfield County, Connecticut, this study examines different ways that environmental dangers are perceived and addressed across three different demographics.