Three researchers at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin (HU) will receive more than three million euros from the Volkswagen Foundation over the coming years to realise their projects in the field of science research. Anthropologist Dr Annette Mehlhorn will investigate how indigenous knowledge can be integrated into international knowledge production in the project "Looking Across Worlds for Environmental Justice: Interrogating Scientific Practices of Relating to Indigenous Knowledge" at the HU's Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems - IRI THESys. In her project "Science under Pressure: Engaging with Science and Democracy in Hybrid Sites (SCIPRESS)", sociologist Dr Cornelia Schendzielorz from the Robert K. Merton Centre for Science Studies at HU is investigating how cooperation between science and politics affects the practice of creating scientific knowledge. Her colleague at the Robert K. Merton Centre for Science Studies, the sociologist Dr Sheena F. Bartscherer, will investigate open science communities, their argumentation strategies and value systems with regard to science reforms in the project "Reforming Science: Investigating the Reflexivity & Reflexivity of (Non)Academic Actors Advocating of Science Reforms".
The three research projects
Looking Across Worlds for Environmental Justice: Interrogating Scientific Practices of Relating to Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge and other historically marginalised forms of knowledge are increasingly seen as indispensable for understanding the current environmental and climate crisis. However, there is a lack of detailed, empirical evidence on the integration of Indigenous knowledge into research projects and related academic practices. The project aims to fill this gap by combining the often separate concerns and critical approaches of post/de/anti-colonial critique on the one hand and empirical science studies on the other. Among other things, it will examine why researchers select certain cases, concepts and conceptualisations, which knowledge is reinforced, how indigenous knowledge (labelled as such) is (trans)formed in global science and why some concepts become relevant for politics and others do not. Two case studies in Ecuador form the starting point to analyse international knowledge production about indigenous environmental knowledge.
Contact
Dr Annette Mehlhorn
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle)
annettemehlhorn? Please insert an @ at this point ?gmail? Please insert a period at this pointcom
Science under Pressure: Engaging with Science and Democracy in Hybrid Sites (SCIPRESS)
Science and politics are increasingly intertwined. The project is based on two expressions of this development: The increasing political expectations of science and the emergence of hybrid institutions at the interface of science and politics. Against this background, the project addresses the question of how the potentially conflicting demands that scientists encounter when collaborating with political actors have an impact on epistemic practice. It examines how scientists' epistemic practices interact with other epistemic practices and forms of representation in hybrid locations and how democratic organisational governance interacts with epistemic practices. Through empirical work, convergences and divergences of democratic and epistemic practices in hybrid organisations will be examined in order to contribute to answering broad theoretical questions about the interaction between democracy and science.
Contact
Dr Cornelia Schendzielorz
Robert K. Merton Centre for Science Studies at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
cornelia.schendzielorz@hu-berlin.de
Reforming Science: Investigating the Reflexivity & Reflexivity of (Non)Academic Actors Advocating of Science Reforms
Recently, there have been communities advocating science reforms under the label "Open Science". Although they exert a noticeable influence on science and politics, little is known about them. Using a multi-method approach, three questions are therefore analysed: What are the argumentative strategies and justifications of proponents and critics in the discourse on science reform? What are the social and intellectual structures of these communities associated with science reforms and to what extent does their knowledge production correspond to that of research fields or scientific social movements? How do current science reforms differ from previous fundamental science reforms? The investigation of these communities is based on theories about scientific social movements and research fields. The aim is to understand the argumentation strategies and underlying value systems.
Further information
The Volkswagen Foundation
The Volkswagen Foundation is, by its own account, Germany's largest private, non-profit science funding organisation. The Foundation supports projects in the natural sciences, life sciences and engineering as well as the humanities and social sciences in four profile areas. In the profile area "Knowledge about Knowledge", the aim is to promote research about science and to provide impetus for the structural improvement of research and teaching.
Contact
Dr Sheena Fee Bartscherer
Robert K. Merton Centre for Science Studies at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
sheena.fee.bartscherer@hu-berlin.de