Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback... more Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.
Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto b... more Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto begins from the authors’ experiences as social scientists working within interdisciplinary science and technology collaborations in agriculture and food. We draw from these experiences to: 1) explain what social scientists contribute to interdisciplinary agri-food tech collaborations; (2) describe barriers to substantive and meaningful collaboration; and (3) propose ways to overcome these barriers. We encourage funding bodies to develop mechanisms that ensure funded projects respect the integrity of social science expertise and incorporate its insights. We also call for the integration of social scientific questions and methods in interdisciplinary projects from the outset, and for a genuine curiosity on the part of STEM and social science researchers alike about the knowledge and skills each of us has to offer. We contend that cultivating such integration and curiosity within interdiscip...
Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such... more Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such as feeding a growing global population while reducing environmental impacts. But what is a food system and how can we most effectively work to change it? “Food System” can be found describing more limited dietary regimens as well as sector-specific supply chains going back to the 1930s, but its use to describe very large, dynamic, coupled socio-ecological systems gained traction in academic and civil society publications in the 1990s and this use of the term has increased dramatically in recent years. When the influential food system actors from non-governmental organizations, foundations, consultancies, and the UN that this research focuses on talk about food systems, they seem to be talking about the same thing. Yet the interpretive flexibility of the concept obfuscates that people may have very different framings that may be deeply incompatible. Drawing from interviews, participant o...
Chapter 17 indicates that revitalizing Indigenous communities requires more than a recognition of... more Chapter 17 indicates that revitalizing Indigenous communities requires more than a recognition of tribal sovereignty. Samara Brock shows how it also requires a recuperation of Indigenous understandings of existence and ways of being. The inclusion of multiple ontologies opens up possibilities for creating relational, hybrid forms of practices that cultivate mutuality and reciprocity between humans and the land.
This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglecte... more This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglected, perhaps because it is widely assumed that these views are incompatible. I argue that this is mistaken. In so doing, I articulate the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible. According to it, these views are incompatible because theism entails that God is morally good, and moral error theory entails that God is not. I reject this argument. Since it is the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible, I conclude that these views are compatible: one can coherently accept both views. Keywords: theism, moral error theory, divine goodness, perfect being theology, moral properties. 1 Note that I do not define 'God' as a morally good being, because I am going to challenge the idea that God must be morally good. I am going to argue that a being who is not morally good could count or qualify as God. 2 These theses broadly accord with Bart Streumer's characterisation of normative error theory, see Bart Streumer, Unbelievable Errors: An Error Theory About All Normative Judgements (Oxford University Press, 2017). But note that I am concerned with the more narrow view of moral error theory, so I have characterised these theses in moral rather than normative terms. I am not here interested in the question of whether theism is compatible with normative error theory. 3 Depending on one's views about the metaphysics of properties, one may wish to distinguish between the claims 'There are no moral properties' and 'There are no instantiated moral properties'. I make no such distinction in this paper. I use these claims interchangeably. Note also that while I characterise moral antirealism as the view that there are no moral properties, some philosophers characterise moral anti-realism as the view that there are no mind-independent moral properties. I do not follow these philosophers. I take moral antirealism to be the view that there are no moral properties, whether mind-dependent or mind-independent.
This paper investigates the evolution of a void and an adjacent galaxy supercluster. For this pur... more This paper investigates the evolution of a void and an adjacent galaxy supercluster. For this purpose the quasispherical Szekeres model is employed. The Szekeres model is an exact solution of the Einstein field equations. In this way investigations of the evolution of the cosmic structures presented here can be freed from such assumptions as small amplitude of the density contrast. Studying the evolution of a void and an adjacent supercluster results not only in better understanding the evolution of cosmic structures but also in acquainting us with the Szekeres model. The main results include the conclusion that small voids surrounded by large overdensities evolve slower than large, isolated voids do. On the other hand, large voids enhance the evolution of adjacent superclusters which evolve much faster than isolated galaxy superclusters.
Indigenous knowledge: enhancing its contribution to natural resources management, 2017
This chapter provides a brief background on how political currents have historically been reflect... more This chapter provides a brief background on how political currents have historically been reflected in the development of agricultural technologies, and demonstrates the political aspects of the recognition, valuation and implementation of indigenous knowledge (IK). Case studies from Ecuador, India, Indonesia and Ireland are used to explore how political power permeates agricultural practices and technology, notably how the powerful use labelling of knowledge as either indigenous or modern as a tactic to reinforce and legitimize their dominance, recognizing certain practices and innovations above others. It is argued that to optimize the contributions of natural resource IK and associated management skills, it is necessary to acknowledge their political dimensions and set them within wider cultural context to promote the inclusion of people's values and aspirations in any development interventions.
Over the past decade, the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska has been embroiled in a controve... more Over the past decade, the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska has been embroiled in a controversy over prospective mineral development in the headwaters of one of the world's most vibrant salmon fisheries. Following the release of a state land-use plan whose maps appeared to promote large-scale mining in the region, a coalition of actors pursued a counter-mapping project, which drew on existing state data to restore priority to subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. In the contest over mining, maps and the data used to comprise them were created and contested by an array of actors, including indigenous groups, environmental organizations, and state and federal governments. Ethnographic research demonstrates how competing narratives took shape through vying efforts to empty out and fill up maps with representations of resources in the form of numbers based on scientific measurement. As quantification becomes the means through which environmental claims are staked, it reinforces the authority of scientific expertise at the same time it foregrounds other ways of knowing and establishing authority. The pursuit of numbers motivated various projects of adding together in Bristol Bay, including coalition building, which made space for alternative visions of and for the territory. The power of counter-mapping may lie less in the relationships it represents, then, and more in terms of those it helps create, insofar as it contributes to assembling new publics in opposition to resource-extractive designs.
During the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have often embraced the category of indigenous w... more During the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have often embraced the category of indigenous while also having to face the ambiguities and limitations of this concept. Indigeneity, whether represented by indigenous people themselves or others, tends to face a "double bind", as defined by Gregory Bateson, in which "no matter what a person does, he can't win." One exit strategy suggested by Bateson is meta-communication-communication about communication-in which new solutions emerge from a questioning of system-internal assumptions. We offer case studies from Ecuador, Peru and Alaska that chart some recent indigenous experiences and strategies for such scenarios.
... Elliot 1999: 353). In their summary of anti-racism training resources, Bina Mehta andJoelle F... more ... Elliot 1999: 353). In their summary of anti-racism training resources, Bina Mehta andJoelle Favreau explain the distinction in this way: Generally, anti-racist ... face of difference. Barthel argues in this same collection that story at its ...
The wor ld is undergoing the largest human migration i n history: that f rom rural to urban. It i... more The wor ld is undergoing the largest human migration i n history: that f rom rural to urban. It is expected that sixty percent o f the wor ld population w i l l be urban by 2030. This unprecedented human migration w i l l br ing together increasingly diverse populations to live together i n growing urban centres. Canada's cities are no exception to these global trends o f urbanization and immigration. Whi le immigrants make up 18 % o f the populat ion o f Canada, more than half live i n Montreal , Toron to and Vancouver . Whi l e this diversity w i l l help to enrich our cities, it could also mean increased ethnic tensions and, i n the worst cases, ghettoization or violence. This study looks at ways to engage Canada's current residents or "the host culture" i n an active multiculturalism, i n which they learn to co-adapt wi th diverse immigrants. In particular, it focuses on training that has been carried out over the past fifteen years by the City o f Vancouver &#...
This article examines different ontologies of land in settler colonialism and Indigenous movement... more This article examines different ontologies of land in settler colonialism and Indigenous movements for decolonization and environmental justice. Settler ontologies of land operate by occluding other modes of perceiving, representing, and experiencing land. Indigenous ontologies of land are commonly oriented around relationality and reciprocal obligations among humans and the other-than-human. Drawing together scholarship from literatures in political economy, political ecology, Indigenous studies, and post-humanism, we synthesize an approach to thinking with land to understand structures of dispossession and the possibilities for Indigenous revitalization through ontological hybridity. Using two different case studies—plantation development in Indonesia and land revitalization in the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Nation—we further develop how settler and Indigenous ontologies operate on the ground, illuminating the coexistence of multiple ontologies of land. Given the centrality of land in settler colonialism, hybrid ontologies are important to Indigenous movements seeking to simultaneously strengthen sovereignty over territory and revitalize land-based practices.
Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback... more Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.
Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto b... more Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto begins from the authors’ experiences as social scientists working within interdisciplinary science and technology collaborations in agriculture and food. We draw from these experiences to: 1) explain what social scientists contribute to interdisciplinary agri-food tech collaborations; (2) describe barriers to substantive and meaningful collaboration; and (3) propose ways to overcome these barriers. We encourage funding bodies to develop mechanisms that ensure funded projects respect the integrity of social science expertise and incorporate its insights. We also call for the integration of social scientific questions and methods in interdisciplinary projects from the outset, and for a genuine curiosity on the part of STEM and social science researchers alike about the knowledge and skills each of us has to offer. We contend that cultivating such integration and curiosity within interdiscip...
Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such... more Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such as feeding a growing global population while reducing environmental impacts. But what is a food system and how can we most effectively work to change it? “Food System” can be found describing more limited dietary regimens as well as sector-specific supply chains going back to the 1930s, but its use to describe very large, dynamic, coupled socio-ecological systems gained traction in academic and civil society publications in the 1990s and this use of the term has increased dramatically in recent years. When the influential food system actors from non-governmental organizations, foundations, consultancies, and the UN that this research focuses on talk about food systems, they seem to be talking about the same thing. Yet the interpretive flexibility of the concept obfuscates that people may have very different framings that may be deeply incompatible. Drawing from interviews, participant o...
Chapter 17 indicates that revitalizing Indigenous communities requires more than a recognition of... more Chapter 17 indicates that revitalizing Indigenous communities requires more than a recognition of tribal sovereignty. Samara Brock shows how it also requires a recuperation of Indigenous understandings of existence and ways of being. The inclusion of multiple ontologies opens up possibilities for creating relational, hybrid forms of practices that cultivate mutuality and reciprocity between humans and the land.
This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglecte... more This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglected, perhaps because it is widely assumed that these views are incompatible. I argue that this is mistaken. In so doing, I articulate the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible. According to it, these views are incompatible because theism entails that God is morally good, and moral error theory entails that God is not. I reject this argument. Since it is the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible, I conclude that these views are compatible: one can coherently accept both views. Keywords: theism, moral error theory, divine goodness, perfect being theology, moral properties. 1 Note that I do not define 'God' as a morally good being, because I am going to challenge the idea that God must be morally good. I am going to argue that a being who is not morally good could count or qualify as God. 2 These theses broadly accord with Bart Streumer's characterisation of normative error theory, see Bart Streumer, Unbelievable Errors: An Error Theory About All Normative Judgements (Oxford University Press, 2017). But note that I am concerned with the more narrow view of moral error theory, so I have characterised these theses in moral rather than normative terms. I am not here interested in the question of whether theism is compatible with normative error theory. 3 Depending on one's views about the metaphysics of properties, one may wish to distinguish between the claims 'There are no moral properties' and 'There are no instantiated moral properties'. I make no such distinction in this paper. I use these claims interchangeably. Note also that while I characterise moral antirealism as the view that there are no moral properties, some philosophers characterise moral anti-realism as the view that there are no mind-independent moral properties. I do not follow these philosophers. I take moral antirealism to be the view that there are no moral properties, whether mind-dependent or mind-independent.
This paper investigates the evolution of a void and an adjacent galaxy supercluster. For this pur... more This paper investigates the evolution of a void and an adjacent galaxy supercluster. For this purpose the quasispherical Szekeres model is employed. The Szekeres model is an exact solution of the Einstein field equations. In this way investigations of the evolution of the cosmic structures presented here can be freed from such assumptions as small amplitude of the density contrast. Studying the evolution of a void and an adjacent supercluster results not only in better understanding the evolution of cosmic structures but also in acquainting us with the Szekeres model. The main results include the conclusion that small voids surrounded by large overdensities evolve slower than large, isolated voids do. On the other hand, large voids enhance the evolution of adjacent superclusters which evolve much faster than isolated galaxy superclusters.
Indigenous knowledge: enhancing its contribution to natural resources management, 2017
This chapter provides a brief background on how political currents have historically been reflect... more This chapter provides a brief background on how political currents have historically been reflected in the development of agricultural technologies, and demonstrates the political aspects of the recognition, valuation and implementation of indigenous knowledge (IK). Case studies from Ecuador, India, Indonesia and Ireland are used to explore how political power permeates agricultural practices and technology, notably how the powerful use labelling of knowledge as either indigenous or modern as a tactic to reinforce and legitimize their dominance, recognizing certain practices and innovations above others. It is argued that to optimize the contributions of natural resource IK and associated management skills, it is necessary to acknowledge their political dimensions and set them within wider cultural context to promote the inclusion of people's values and aspirations in any development interventions.
Over the past decade, the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska has been embroiled in a controve... more Over the past decade, the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska has been embroiled in a controversy over prospective mineral development in the headwaters of one of the world's most vibrant salmon fisheries. Following the release of a state land-use plan whose maps appeared to promote large-scale mining in the region, a coalition of actors pursued a counter-mapping project, which drew on existing state data to restore priority to subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. In the contest over mining, maps and the data used to comprise them were created and contested by an array of actors, including indigenous groups, environmental organizations, and state and federal governments. Ethnographic research demonstrates how competing narratives took shape through vying efforts to empty out and fill up maps with representations of resources in the form of numbers based on scientific measurement. As quantification becomes the means through which environmental claims are staked, it reinforces the authority of scientific expertise at the same time it foregrounds other ways of knowing and establishing authority. The pursuit of numbers motivated various projects of adding together in Bristol Bay, including coalition building, which made space for alternative visions of and for the territory. The power of counter-mapping may lie less in the relationships it represents, then, and more in terms of those it helps create, insofar as it contributes to assembling new publics in opposition to resource-extractive designs.
During the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have often embraced the category of indigenous w... more During the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have often embraced the category of indigenous while also having to face the ambiguities and limitations of this concept. Indigeneity, whether represented by indigenous people themselves or others, tends to face a "double bind", as defined by Gregory Bateson, in which "no matter what a person does, he can't win." One exit strategy suggested by Bateson is meta-communication-communication about communication-in which new solutions emerge from a questioning of system-internal assumptions. We offer case studies from Ecuador, Peru and Alaska that chart some recent indigenous experiences and strategies for such scenarios.
... Elliot 1999: 353). In their summary of anti-racism training resources, Bina Mehta andJoelle F... more ... Elliot 1999: 353). In their summary of anti-racism training resources, Bina Mehta andJoelle Favreau explain the distinction in this way: Generally, anti-racist ... face of difference. Barthel argues in this same collection that story at its ...
The wor ld is undergoing the largest human migration i n history: that f rom rural to urban. It i... more The wor ld is undergoing the largest human migration i n history: that f rom rural to urban. It is expected that sixty percent o f the wor ld population w i l l be urban by 2030. This unprecedented human migration w i l l br ing together increasingly diverse populations to live together i n growing urban centres. Canada's cities are no exception to these global trends o f urbanization and immigration. Whi le immigrants make up 18 % o f the populat ion o f Canada, more than half live i n Montreal , Toron to and Vancouver . Whi l e this diversity w i l l help to enrich our cities, it could also mean increased ethnic tensions and, i n the worst cases, ghettoization or violence. This study looks at ways to engage Canada's current residents or "the host culture" i n an active multiculturalism, i n which they learn to co-adapt wi th diverse immigrants. In particular, it focuses on training that has been carried out over the past fifteen years by the City o f Vancouver &#...
This article examines different ontologies of land in settler colonialism and Indigenous movement... more This article examines different ontologies of land in settler colonialism and Indigenous movements for decolonization and environmental justice. Settler ontologies of land operate by occluding other modes of perceiving, representing, and experiencing land. Indigenous ontologies of land are commonly oriented around relationality and reciprocal obligations among humans and the other-than-human. Drawing together scholarship from literatures in political economy, political ecology, Indigenous studies, and post-humanism, we synthesize an approach to thinking with land to understand structures of dispossession and the possibilities for Indigenous revitalization through ontological hybridity. Using two different case studies—plantation development in Indonesia and land revitalization in the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Nation—we further develop how settler and Indigenous ontologies operate on the ground, illuminating the coexistence of multiple ontologies of land. Given the centrality of land in settler colonialism, hybrid ontologies are important to Indigenous movements seeking to simultaneously strengthen sovereignty over territory and revitalize land-based practices.
Uploads
Papers by Samara Brock