Description

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals,” are among the most persistent pollutants and, as emerging science shows, are exacerbated by climate change. New pathways include mobilization of concentrated PFAS in coastal soils and sea spray during flooding, drought, and extreme winds. European countries—especially Denmark—are investing in data infrastructure to better understand climate-exacerbated PFAS. Critical data studies highlight the limits of fragmented, “chemical-by-chemical” regulation, yet few examine the infrastructures linking PFAS and climate impacts. Likewise, environmental governance scholarship traces jurisdictional and temporal divisions that hinder climate action but rarely considers intersections with toxic chemicals. PF-ARCHIVE proposes a qualitative study of how climate-exacerbated PFAS is made into a data object and infrastructure, modulating governance of “combo disasters” across temporal and spatial scales. Methodologically, the project employs ethnographic fieldwork and digital archiving to examine how Danish researchers and enterprises develop PFAS data infrastructures and how these are emplaced in diverse coastal communities. It will trace the daily work of scientists at a new PFAS research center in Copenhagen and how politicians, farmers, and advocacy groups use data in two rural and urban-coastal Danish settings. Through an ethnographic account of climate-exacerbated PFAS as a data object shaped by exceptional timescales—and an analysis of how related infrastructures reshape relationships and conceptions of place in affected coastal communities—PF-ARCHIVE will show the challenges and significance of “combo-disaster” knowledge infrastructures in a strong regulatory setting. PF-ARCHIVE thus advances the social sciences and the public interest by showing how combinatory and cumulative hazards are handled across data infrastructures, places, and governance regimes.

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