... Brown, Phil, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Stephen Zavestoski, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Rebec... more ... Brown, Phil, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Stephen Zavestoski, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Rebecca Gasior Altman, and Laura Senier. ... Buck, Germaine, John Vena, Enrique Schisterman, Jacek Dmochowski, Pauline Mendola, Lowell Sever, Edward Fitzgerald, Paul Kostyniak ...
This paper describes work-in-progress to build an interactive, data-base driven website that crea... more This paper describes work-in-progress to build an interactive, data-base driven website that creates a space for collaborative thinking about the ethical dimensions of information technology. The site is associated with the Center for Ethics and Complex Systems at Rensselaer, which supports social science research that develops data, methodologies and theory to understand how ethics are affected by rapid technological development. The CECS website materializes a commitment to inclusion of diverse voices in the development of new ethical analyses. Failure to include diverse kinds of expertise in the development of ethical analyses is particularly problematic in an era when so many people - including social scientists themselves - acknowledge that ways of thinking about society have not kept pace with its technical development.
I have taught anthropological and ethnographic research design to both undergraduate and PhD stud... more I have taught anthropological and ethnographic research design to both undergraduate and PhD students for many years, striving to cultivate their capacity to think expansively about ways anthropological approaches can be used to understand and better the contemporary world. I want them to gain what I think of as methodological acumen—a capacity to think about the research that is called for, possible, and strategic in a given context. Towards this end, we do a series of rapidresearch design exercises focused on varied problem domains. In these brief comments, I will relay some of the possible research questions and projects that could be identified in such an exercise, as a way to illustrate the enormous possible scope and potential of anthropological research focused on farm safety. To begin, I always have students quickly sketch the array of stakeholders in the problem domain on which we are focused, mapping what enables and disables a group’s capacity to act in the world. Workers might be enabled by strong labor unions, for example, while at the same time disabled by lack of access to alternative sources of employment. Corporations are usually enabled by a mix of money, capacity to produce slick communications, and political power (often enabled by law, such as the Citizens United decision). Increasingly, corporate interests are further supported by intimate involvement in the way hazards are studied scientifically and then represented in law and policy. Corporate power can be somewhat disabled— or at least rendered more starkly visible—by strong watchdog organizations or citizen protests. Mapping stakeholders points to many possible places for anthropological analysis and begins to offer an analysis of power dynamics in a problem domain. From there, one can imagine clusters of possible research projects, involving many different kinds of data and scales of analysis. Spinning out possible projects that would advance the understanding of the many variables and dynamics shaping farm safety quickly acquires its own momentum. For example, technologies often multiply the power of stakeholders and, thus, are important foci of study themselves. Anthropologists could study how new technologies and techniques are changing farming practices, sometimes improving safety, but also creating new risks and hazards (which can easily be overlooked amidst the reorganization and excitement that often come with new practices). Anthropologists could also study ways new communication technologies are used— or avoided—in farm families and in the many organizations with which they interact. There is a long-running thread of work in anthropology that focused on ways technologies shape and change communities. On another track, anthropologists could extend studies of “safety culture” on and around farms, oriented by studies of safety culture in other domains. Studies of safety culture in the nuclear power industry, for example, have shown that hierarchies of knowledge and authority, which privilege the “calculative” knowledge of managers while discounting the more qualitative and contextual knowledge of plant operators, make it difficult to recognize some types of risk. In farm communities, anthropologists could map out who has coercive authority, who has persuasive authority, and whether there are actors (church leaders or
... Glossy brochures advertising the chemical industry's post-Bhopal commitment to Responsi... more ... Glossy brochures advertising the chemical industry's post-Bhopal commitment to Responsible Care helped ... NRIs who imagine ways to interlink science, business, and the public good. ... around tensions that characterize the genomics domain today: exchange and value, life and ...
: [commentary, circulation, folklore, open access, research methods, archive, drupal, open journa... more : [commentary, circulation, folklore, open access, research methods, archive, drupal, open journal system]
... 2003, 2004; GoK 2005). Over 70% of the natural disasters in Kenya are related to extreme weat... more ... 2003, 2004; GoK 2005). Over 70% of the natural disasters in Kenya are related to extreme weather and climate events such as strong winds, landslides, droughts and floods (Ongwae and Karanja 2005). The potential impacts of ...
... Brown, Phil, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Stephen Zavestoski, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Rebec... more ... Brown, Phil, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Stephen Zavestoski, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Rebecca Gasior Altman, and Laura Senier. ... Buck, Germaine, John Vena, Enrique Schisterman, Jacek Dmochowski, Pauline Mendola, Lowell Sever, Edward Fitzgerald, Paul Kostyniak ...
This paper describes work-in-progress to build an interactive, data-base driven website that crea... more This paper describes work-in-progress to build an interactive, data-base driven website that creates a space for collaborative thinking about the ethical dimensions of information technology. The site is associated with the Center for Ethics and Complex Systems at Rensselaer, which supports social science research that develops data, methodologies and theory to understand how ethics are affected by rapid technological development. The CECS website materializes a commitment to inclusion of diverse voices in the development of new ethical analyses. Failure to include diverse kinds of expertise in the development of ethical analyses is particularly problematic in an era when so many people - including social scientists themselves - acknowledge that ways of thinking about society have not kept pace with its technical development.
I have taught anthropological and ethnographic research design to both undergraduate and PhD stud... more I have taught anthropological and ethnographic research design to both undergraduate and PhD students for many years, striving to cultivate their capacity to think expansively about ways anthropological approaches can be used to understand and better the contemporary world. I want them to gain what I think of as methodological acumen—a capacity to think about the research that is called for, possible, and strategic in a given context. Towards this end, we do a series of rapidresearch design exercises focused on varied problem domains. In these brief comments, I will relay some of the possible research questions and projects that could be identified in such an exercise, as a way to illustrate the enormous possible scope and potential of anthropological research focused on farm safety. To begin, I always have students quickly sketch the array of stakeholders in the problem domain on which we are focused, mapping what enables and disables a group’s capacity to act in the world. Workers might be enabled by strong labor unions, for example, while at the same time disabled by lack of access to alternative sources of employment. Corporations are usually enabled by a mix of money, capacity to produce slick communications, and political power (often enabled by law, such as the Citizens United decision). Increasingly, corporate interests are further supported by intimate involvement in the way hazards are studied scientifically and then represented in law and policy. Corporate power can be somewhat disabled— or at least rendered more starkly visible—by strong watchdog organizations or citizen protests. Mapping stakeholders points to many possible places for anthropological analysis and begins to offer an analysis of power dynamics in a problem domain. From there, one can imagine clusters of possible research projects, involving many different kinds of data and scales of analysis. Spinning out possible projects that would advance the understanding of the many variables and dynamics shaping farm safety quickly acquires its own momentum. For example, technologies often multiply the power of stakeholders and, thus, are important foci of study themselves. Anthropologists could study how new technologies and techniques are changing farming practices, sometimes improving safety, but also creating new risks and hazards (which can easily be overlooked amidst the reorganization and excitement that often come with new practices). Anthropologists could also study ways new communication technologies are used— or avoided—in farm families and in the many organizations with which they interact. There is a long-running thread of work in anthropology that focused on ways technologies shape and change communities. On another track, anthropologists could extend studies of “safety culture” on and around farms, oriented by studies of safety culture in other domains. Studies of safety culture in the nuclear power industry, for example, have shown that hierarchies of knowledge and authority, which privilege the “calculative” knowledge of managers while discounting the more qualitative and contextual knowledge of plant operators, make it difficult to recognize some types of risk. In farm communities, anthropologists could map out who has coercive authority, who has persuasive authority, and whether there are actors (church leaders or
... Glossy brochures advertising the chemical industry's post-Bhopal commitment to Responsi... more ... Glossy brochures advertising the chemical industry's post-Bhopal commitment to Responsible Care helped ... NRIs who imagine ways to interlink science, business, and the public good. ... around tensions that characterize the genomics domain today: exchange and value, life and ...
: [commentary, circulation, folklore, open access, research methods, archive, drupal, open journa... more : [commentary, circulation, folklore, open access, research methods, archive, drupal, open journal system]
... 2003, 2004; GoK 2005). Over 70% of the natural disasters in Kenya are related to extreme weat... more ... 2003, 2004; GoK 2005). Over 70% of the natural disasters in Kenya are related to extreme weather and climate events such as strong winds, landslides, droughts and floods (Ongwae and Karanja 2005). The potential impacts of ...
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