ABSTRACT
The last decade has seen a resurgence of public concern about the physical environment, which has taken two main forms. Most publicized has been concern with the global consequences of our collective use of the planet. But comparable concern has been aroused, on a quite different geographical scale, about particular sources of pollution and the local populations living nearby. This chapter is about the latter, and about the social and political context in which such concerns are expressed and contested. We shall draw on two case studies from major urban centres in north-east England to explore some of the methodological issues which arise from trying to take local understandings seriously in research of an epidemiological nature.
