Selected Timeline of the Social History of Participatory Action Research (PAR) Methodologies

Selected Timeline of the Social History of Participatory Action Research (PAR) Methodologies
(Slightly adapted from a timeline I developed on my Carleton University web page (2003) to complement and share my PhD comprehensive exam).  

1913 Moreno, Dr. Jacob Levy, (1889-1974) originated psychodrama, sociodrama, role training, sociometry, group psychotherapy. Moreno left Vienna and moved to America in 1925. He was influential in the social sciences. He originated psychodrama in 1921 a forerunner of creative arts therapies. He founded the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama (ASGPP) in 1942. In 1918 Moreno was using the term ‘drama’ to refer to “the activation of religious, ethical and cultural values in spontaneous-dramatic form”. It has been argued that the Austrian physician, social philospher, and poet Jacob Moreno was a pioneer in developing the idea of practitioner research (Gunz, 1996).”McTaggert (1992:2) cites work by Gstettner and Altricher which has a physician named Moreno using group participation in 1913 in a community development initiative with prostitutes in Vienna. “

1940’s Kurt Lewin is often credited with being the “father” of action research, especially in social psychology and education (for example, Kemmis, 1988: 29). When Lewin went to the US, he had been much influenced by Moreno, the inventor of group dynamics and sociodrama and psychodrama. Moreno had already developed a view of action research in which the “action” was about activism, not just about changing practice or behaviour understood in narrowly individualistic terms. Moreno was interested in research as a part of social movement. “Despite the clouded origins of action research, Kurt Lewin, in the mid 1940s constructed a theory of action research, which described action research as “proceeding in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning, action and the evaluation of the result of action” (Kemmis and McTaggert 1990:8). ”

1945 – 1975 The new First Nations middle class emerged in Canada during the period of rapid growth following WWII (1945 – 1975) and includes managers, administrators, professionals and technicians. Cree bureaucrats in James Bay and the Alaskan business class emerged and reproduced itself. These groups mastered the technical idiom and directed PAR. They shared middle-class values with non-aboriginals and recognised that a fully-participatory research process which included all classes of aboriginal society, would challenge the status quo. (Jackson 1993:55) 

1960 “The Rockefeller Foundation opened a field office in Cali, Colombia in 1960, ten years after the establishment of the Colombian Agricultural Program in Bogota. Guy S. Hayes, an Assistant Director in the Medical and Natural Sciences division, held the post of Field Director in Cali from 1960 until 1970. After 1970, the office was headed by Foundation Representatives Patrick N. Owens (1970-1974) and Farzam Arbab (1974-1978). The office closed on December 31, 1983.”

1973 International Council for Adult Education: Toronto, ON founded by J. Roby Kidd. In 1975 this organization became a major advocate of participatory action research. The ICAE involved local communities in data collection and problem identification. Academics, who were also community workers, collaborated with local community participants on research projects. “The overall objective of the Council is to promote human resource development, to enable people to participate more fully in determining their economic, social, political and cultural development.” International Council for Adult Education  The aim of the Council is to promote the education of adults in accordance with the development needs of individuals, communities and societies as a way of enhancing international understanding; achieving economic and social development; advancing the skills and competencies of individuals and groups.

1960s Migration of Aboriginal people to urban areas grew in 1960s and 1970s. (Jackson 1993:58)  “Fin des années ‘60, se développa une rébellion contre le savoir universitaire, notamment par la recherche appelée en Allemagne “Aktivierende Befragung” (enquête mobilisatrice). Il s’agissait, par exemple, d’aller de porte à porte dans les quartiers pour entamer une conversation dont le but était d’inviter à la réflexion. Ainsi, tel agent dit “il paraît que le club de jeunes du quartier cause des problèmes car il y a eu vandalisme. Qu’en pensez-vous ?”. La synthèse des conversations ayant été faite, celle-ci est restituée aux gens du quartier, par pâté de maison. Cette enquête débouche sur une action en commun. Convergence the International Journal of Adult Education, has been providing a forum for international exchange on current developments in adult education since 1968. An issue was devoted to Participatory Research in 1988: 1988. “Participatory Research” Convergence Vol.XXI:2/3.

1970’s Aboriginal leadership and the new middle class: Throughout the 1970s aboriginal members of the new middle class initiated and directed PAR. (Jackson 1993:55) 

1970′S Critiques of positivistic research paradigms emerged in the work of Habermas, Adorno and the Frankfurt School.

1974-? Edward Jackson worked for several years as field coordinator for Frontier College in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada. 

1971 Paulo Freire visited Tanzania in 1971 and observed the Participatory Research work as self-defined by Marja Liisa Swantz.

1971 Paulo Freire visited Tanzania in 1971 and observed Swantz’ methodologies which he then introduced to international social scientists. (Hall 1994:3331).

1960’s? – 1970’s Marja Liisa Swantz. worked with students and women village workers in the Tanzanian coastal region using a method which she self-defined as Participatory Research. Paulo Freire visited Tanzania in 1971 and observed Swantz’ methodologies which he then introduced to international social scientists. (Hall 1994:3331). Budd Hall credits Swantz work with influencing his own. “Marja Liisa Swantz was a social scientist attached to the Bureau for Land Use and Productivity (BRALUP) of the University of Dar es Salaam. She and a group of students from the University of Dar es Salaam including Kemal Mustapha who was later to become the African coordinator for participatory research were working in an engaged way with women and others in the costal region of Tanzania. Through this practice she and the others began to articulate what she called “participant research”.” (Hall, Budd 1997) 

1970-74 Budd Hall worked at the Institute of Adult Education of the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Hall described how he and many co-workers were transformed by the “…ideas, strategies and programmes of the Tanzanian government of the day articulated most effectively by President Julius Nyerere. Nyerere himself a former teacher had written much about the capacity of education to unchain people just as it had been used by the colonial powers to enchain a people. The philosophy of Ujamaa and Self-Reliance, concepts of what we would call today Afro-centric development and local economic development were open challenges to the way that the rich countries saw the world. Tanzania and Tanzanians were is so many ways telling the world that the ‘emperor has no clothes’. Nyerere and a generation of articulate and gifted leaders such as Paul Mhaiki in adult education challenged all who were working in Tanzania, national and expatriate alike, to look through a different lens to understand education, agriculture, development, history, culture and eventually for some of us even research and evaluation methods. We were all encouraged to ‘meet the masses more’ and while on a day to day basis this was difficult to understand, over time many of us were profoundly transformed.” (Hall, Budd 1997) 

1974 Fundacion para la Aplicacion de las Ciencias (FUNDAEC), a nongovernmental development agency in Colombia was founded by a group of professionals from a variety of disciplines, concerned about the negative impacts of the development processes set in motion after WWII, outlined in their frequent deliberations what eventually became a model for the integral development of rural areas, rooted in a meaningful participation of its inhabitants. The group was led by Farzam Arbab, a renowned physicist who had arrived as a visiting professor to the Universidad del Valle in 1970.” “The Rockefeller Foundation opened a field office in Cali, Colombia in 1960, ten years after the establishment of the Colombian Agricultural Program in Bogota. Farzam Arbab headed the program from 1974-1978. Farzam Arbab was a member of the NSA of Colombia from 1970 – 1980. Dr. Arbab holds a BA from Amherst College, Massachusetts (1964), a doctorate in elementary particle physics from the University of California, Berkeley (1968), and an honorary doctorate in science from Amherst College (1989). Farzam Arbab served as president of Fundacion para la Aplicacion de las Ciencias (FUNDAEC), a nongovernmental development agency in Colombia, from 1974 to 1988, and continues to serve on its board of directors. “Farzam Arbab’s doctorate in theoretical particle physics (1968) led him to Colombia to work with the University Development Program of the Rockefeller Foundation to strengthen the Department of Physics at the Universidad del Valle. While there he began to study the relationship between science, technology, and educational policy and their effects on development, which led him and a group of colleagues to form the Fundación para la Aplicación y Enseñanza de las Ciencias (Foundation for the Application and Teaching of Science).”

1974-75 Budd Hall was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex from 1974 – 1975. While at Sussex he met international researchers like Francisco Vio Grossi from Chile and Rajesh Tandon from India, who shared his research interests. (Hall, Budd 1997) 

1975 While at Sussex Budd Hall compiled a special issue of the journal Convergence on the theme of what he labelled ‘Participatory Research’. Hall chose the term ‘participatory research’ to encompass the collection of varied research approaches, including Swantz’ ‘Partipant Research’ and the European ‘Action Research’ which ’shared a participatory ethos.’ (Hall, Budd 1997) 

1976 First World Assembly of the International Council for Adult Education which took place in Dar es Salaam in 1976. 

1970s “La critique la plus tranchée est intervenue dans les années ‘70 et vient des universitaires engagés du Sud s’insurgeant contre l’aspect élitiste, importé, ethnocentrique du savoir occidental. D’autres épistémologies furent proposées, notamment par Orlando Fals-Borda (Colombien), Mohammed Anisur Rahman (Bangladeshi) et Budd Hall (Canadien travaillant en Tanzanie). (Se référer à Fals-Borda et Rahman Action and knowledge. Breaking the monopoly with P.A.R., Apex Press, N.Y. 1991). C’est Budd Hall qui lanca le vocable Participatory Action-Research (P.A.R.) ou RAP : “recherche-action-participative” au cours de son travail visant à associer les villageois ujamaa de Tanzanie à sa recherche-action.” Network Cultures 

1977 the International Council of Adult Education supported the initiation of a global network in Participatory Research that brought together the work of a growing number of practitioners/scholars already engaged participatory research practices in different parts of the world. Budd Hall, Edward Jackson, dian marino and Deborah Barndt. This included Orlando Fals-Borda and colleagues in Colombia, Francisco Vio Grossi in Chile, Rahman in Bangladesh and Hall in Tanzania. (Hall, Budd 1997) (Fischer 1996)  

1977 In the early stages of participatory action research many academics left their institutional posts to engage in more militant activism. Inspiration was garnered from humanist philosophies, from the writings of Ghandhi and in the contemporary version of Marxist thought. Orlando describes this stage as iconoclastic where no established institutions were trusted. (Orlando 1992:15) 

1977 World Symposium on Action-Research and Scientific Analysis was held in Cartagena, Columbia. This event was organised by Orlando Fals-Borda and Columbian institutions along with other national and international bodies. The theories of Antonio Gramsci offered new insights into participation. (Orlando 1992:15) Hall asserts that Fals-Borda originated the term “Participatory Action Research.” Budd Hall recalled that this Symposium “totally and efficiently dismissed for once and for all the pretention of detached positivist science.” (Hall, Budd 1997) 

1977 A follow-up meeting was held in Aurora, Ontario with Budd Hall, dian marino, Edward Jackson, Yusuf Kassam (Tanzania), Abdelwahid Yousif (Sudan), Per Stensland (USA), Helen Callaway (UK), Greg Conchelos, Paz Buttedahl, Francisco Vio Grossi, a colleague from India. The participants at that meeting produced a working definition of Participatory Research. 1. PR involves a whole range of powerless groups of people–exploited, the poor, the oppressed, the marginal. 2. It involves the full and active participation of the community in the entire research process. 3. The subject of the research originates in the community itself and the problem is defined, analyzed and solved by the community. 4. The ultimate goal is the radical transformation of social reality and the improvement of the lives of the people themselves. The beneficiaries of the research are the members of the community. 5. the process of participatory research can create a greater awareness in the people of their own resources and mobilize them for self-reliant development. 6.It is a more scientific method or research in that the participation of the community in the research process facilitates a more accurate and authentic analysis of social reality. 7. The researcher is a committed participant and learner in the process of research, i.e. a militant rather than a detached observer.(Hall, 1978:5) (Hall, Budd 1997)

1978 There were five nodes in the Participatory Action network: Toronto; New Delhi-Rajesh Tandon, coordinator; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Yusuf Kassam, coordinator; Netherlands – Jan de Vries, coordinator; Caracas, Venezuela – Francisco Vio Grossi, Coordinator.(Hall, Budd 1997) 

1979 There were meetings in New Delhi organized by Rajesh Tandon, at Highlander Research and Education Centre hosted by John Gaventa.(Hall, Budd 1997) 

1970’s

Stenhouse, L. (1979) ‘Using research means doing research’ in Dahl H et al (eds). “Spotlight on educational research, Oslo University Press. Stenhouse brought action research to the field of education in Britain and did much to popularise the idea of the teacher as a researcher, the classroom as a laboratory and teachers as part of a ‘scientific community’.” 

1981 “Breaking Ground: The Role of Popular Education and Research in Social Movements” was organised by Deborah Barndt. This conference looked at case studies from Nicaragua(Francisco Lacayo), Quebec (Paul Belanger) and Highlander Centre in the USA (Myles Horton and John Gaventa). This conference not only spoke of popular education and participatory research but was organized along the principles themselves.(Hall, Budd 1997) 

1982

At the 20th World Congress of Sociology in Mexico City Participatory Action-Research expanded its scope from the “micro, local and peasant community to the complex, urban, economic and regional.” (Fals-Borda 1992:16) 

1980s Migration of Aboriginal people to urban areas stabilized. (Jackson 1993:58) 

1980 “Native women are not represented at the leadership and decision-making level of Native organizations.” (Tobias 1980:16 cited in Jackson 1993:59) 

1980s Neoconservative wave cut into social services, human rights. (Jackson 1993:61) 

1980s Canadian government took aggressive stance vis-a-vis National Energy Programs and aboriginal communities. (Jackson 1993:52) 

Bill C-48 Canada Lands Legislation permitted exploration and extraction activities by resource corporations on Aboriginal lands before land claims were settled. (Jackson 1993:51) 

1987

In Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist ApproachPatricia Maguire revealed how the early writings most often spoke in genderless and race-neutral terms such as the community, the people, the marginalized, the exploited, or the poor(Maguire, 1987).”Maguire’s work advanced our collective understanding of how gender and participatory research works together and how many of us, myself included, contributed to the silencing of women’s perspectives through our own language and experiences.” .(Hall, Budd 1997) 

1988

Since 1988, The South-North Network Cultures & Development has been addressing the essential role of cultural dynamics within society.Cultures & Development Journal Network Cultures-Europe, Brussels, Belguim 

1988 Pam Colorado of the University of Calgary linked PAR to IK. Colorado suggested PAR could act as ‘flow-through” mechanism between western science and Indigenous Knowledge. Colorado identified a number of characteristics associated with both IK and PAR: “… a commitment to qualitative research, local participation, the learning process, the value of fun in research work, and the role of professionals in facilitation and group building…” (Colorado 1988:64 cited in Jackson 1993:62) 

1990? Trent University offered a PAR course in their Native economic development and small business management courses. 

1990 A turning point in relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. (Jackson 1993:61) 

1990 Elijah Harper, an Aboriginal legislator from Manitoba voted against the Meech Lake Accord, a constitutional amendment to bestow special protection of Quebec’s cultural status in Canada. (Jackson 1993:61) 

1990 Traditionalists and heavily armed Mohawks at Oka manned a series of protest blockades for a month in the summer. The Canadian Army was called in drawing international attention and placing Aboriginal rights on the public agenda. (Jackson 1993:61) 

1990? Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) urged non-Aboriginal researchers to take their ethical and cultural direction from Aboriginal communities. (Jackson 1993:63) 

1991 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples is the most ambitious PAR ever. (Jackson 1993:60) 

1990

Sage published William Foote Whyte’s manuscript entitled “Participatory Action Research.” In this version of the history of Action Research, Lewin was credited with being its founder in the 1940’s. Whyte made no reference to Fals Borda, Hall, Tandon, Brown, Swantz, Maguire or any of the thousands of both Northern and Majority world writers who had been using the same term. 

1993 Aboriginal working class: Jackson argues that the aboriginal working class has been ignored by aboriginal groups whose administrators are largely middle class. Of the entire Aboriginal population it is estimated that about 25% are permanently unemployed. (Loxley, John University of Manitoba cited in Jackson 1993:58) 

1990s Aboriginal movement in Canada now uses more traditional social science methods including surveys along with other qualitative PAR methods. (Jackson 1993:53) 

 

VOICES OF CHANGE: Aboriginal-centred and Inuit-centred participatory action research projects:

PHASE I Aboriginal PAR: Land Use and Occupation

 

c.1965 Community self-surveys (CENTRAD 1973; Ponting and Gibbons 1980 cited in Jackson 1993:49.) 

1968 – discovery of oil and gas, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska 

1968 – Inter-departmental Task Force on Northern Oil development 

C.1970’s Land Use and Occupancy Studies (Jackson 1993:50) 

1970 – Imperial Oil discovery of oil and gas in the Mackenzie Delta 

1970 – General guidelines for the construction and operation of oil and gas pipelines in the Mackenzie Valley and Northern Yukon 

1971 – Environmental Social Program 

1972 – Expanded Guidelines for Northern Pipelines 

1974 – Canadian Arctic Gas Application 

1974 – Government creates the Pipeline Application Assessment Group 

1974 – Environmental Protection Board 

1974 – Independent Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry 

1974 British Columbia Nazko-Kluskus Land Use (cited in Jackson 1993:50)

1974 – 1977: Mr. Justice Thomas Berger’s enquiry was established on March 21, 1974. “Northern Frontier – Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline
Inquiry.”

1976 The Alcan Project proposed to carry natural gas by pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the continental United States. It was put forward by a consortium of companies but it would have been Foothills Pipelines (Yukon) that would be building the Yukon portion of the pipeline. http://www.economicdevelopment.yk.ca/industry/OilAndGas/businessdevelopment/Lysyk%20Inquiry.htm

1977 Dene land use and occupancy study led to claims made by Dene Nation. Nahanni Butte is one of the Deh Cho’ communities. Nahanni Dene speak Slavey. (Nahanni 1977 cited in Jackson 1993:50) 

1978 Mackenzie Valley proposed pipeline was prevented due to the inquiry into Dene Land Use (Jackson 1978) 

1977 Eastern Arctic Inuit land use led to claims made by Inuit Tapirisat (Brice-Bennett 1977 cited in Jackson 1993:51) 

1977 Northern Ontario Nishnawbe-Aski Land Use (Sieciechowicz 1977 cited in Jackson 1993:50) 

Freeman, M. 1976. Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project, Vol. 3: Land Use Atlas. Ottawa: Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs. 

1970s Other Land Use and Occupation Studies led to Committee for Original People’s Entitlement (The Inuit of the Western Arctic) (Jackson 1993:51) PHASE II Aboriginal PAR: Water, Sanitation, Health, Housing, Social Services

 Late 1970’s Aboriginal-initiated, community-directed research on water, sanitation, health, housing, social services. (Jackson 1993:50) These studies used qualitative methodologies. (Jackson 1993:53)

1977 Trout Lake Band Council This PAR Cree-centred project (1977 – early 1980s) used local research committees, community seminars, study trips and local training along with reports in Cree syllabics. The research was designed to select a water and sewage system for the community. The choice was between a costly sewer line to service a small minority of non-Aboriginal houses (termed ‘technical apartheid’) vs a trucked water and waste system that would serve all the community. The more democratic second system was chosen. The project received international attention. (Jackson 1993:52) 

late 1970’s Union of Ontario Indians engaged in PAR health policy production. (Jackson 1993:52) 

1979 Native Canadian Centre, Toronto initiated a social services needs assessment. Aboriginal-initiated PAR used network sampling methods, long interviews with open-ended questions, coffee gatherings to present the results and obtain feedback. (Bobiwash and Malloch 1980 in Jackson 1993:53) 

1980 National Royal Commisson on Indian and Inuit Health (Jackson 1993:53) 

1980s Health steering committee formed of community health representatives, band council members, citizens at large. (Jackson 1993:53) 

late 1970’s Aboriginal participatory research began to focus on women as a group (Jackson 1993:50)

PHASE III Aboriginal PAR: Alternative Economic Strategies

late 1970’s Aboriginal communities use PAR to identify alternative economic strategies (Jackson 1993:50) 

1977 Nahanni described the outside professional, non-Aboriginal researcher as a spy who writes in codes and does not share research findings. Dene, on the other hand were described as belonging to a brotherhood. (Jackson 1993:51) This professional researcher-researched dichotomy existed in the 1970s where disempowered groups were negotiating land claims with governments and institutions linked directly or indirectly to the outside, professional, non-Aboriginal researcher. 

early 1980’s Aboriginal communities begin to use PAR to develop alternative economic strategies (Jackson 1993:50) 1981 Council for Yukon Indians (CYI) recommended a comprehensive training plan for Yukon Indian People. (Council for Yukon Indians 1981a cited in Jackson 1993:54) 

1982 Kayahna Tribal area used PAR methods in economic development planning and implementation. 

1982 Canadian Journal of Native Studies published a special issue on the role of outsiders from outside the Aboriginal community in contributing “knowledge of the functioning of institutions of the larger society as they impinge on native concerns while community members provide expertise in defining the issues and in culturally and behaviourally appropriate ways of addressing them. Together both groups search for methods of linking resources to communities to solve development issues.” (Jackson et al. 1982:5 cited in Jackson 1993:62) 

1984 Pauktuutit was incorporated in 1984 as the national association that represents all Inuit women in Canada. Issues researched include family violence, justice, youth, health, social issues, FAS, 

1985 Faculty and students of the Department of Native Studies at Trent University produced a set of guidelines for doing participatory oral history research in Aboriginal communities. (Conchelos 1985 cited in Jackson 1993:62)

1985 Old Crow community in northern Yukon produced a socioeconomic plan for sustainable resources use with PAR methods. (Jackson 1993:62) 

Native Canadians refer to themselves as Aboriginal peoples, First Nations or First Peoples. Aboriginal peoples and Aboriginal movement are central to the current political, economic and social activism of Native Canadians. (Jackson 1993:64) 

PHASE IV Aboriginal and Inuit PAR: Alternative Cultural Strategies

1. Language education, protection and survival

2. Interviewing the Elders

1996 Oral Traditions Course offered at Nunavut Arctic College Interviewing Inuit Elders: Introduction The Oral History Project grew out of the Oral Traditions course held at the Iqaluit campus of Nunavut Arctic College in 1996. The College invited Inuit elders to be interviewed, in Inuktitut, by the eight students taking the course that year.(Iqaluit, 1999).

1998 course offered at Nunavut Arctic College, Iqaluit, NU in the Inuit Studies Program supervised by Susan Sammons and Alexina Kublu.

3. Negotiating interfaces with provincial, federal and corporate bodies that deal in cultural industries

4. Integration of IQ and IK in all areas involving Aboriginal and Indigenous culture

 

1999

Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY) is formed as a disctinctive aspect of the Nunavut government. 

2002

“The True North Strong and Free – SYMPOSIUM REPORT.” June 17 – 19. The focus of the Symposium was to examine the impact of the benchmark Berger Inquiry over the past twenty five years and to explore ways in which Berger’s findings and recommendations may guide future northern endeavors. The Berger Inquiry set a number of precedents that have impacted on research with aboriginal, Metis and Inuit communities over the past twenty five years. Besides the body of recommendations produced from this research, Berger also developed a new and innovative research methodology and introduced a new concept of intervener funding. (Intervener funding refers to the provision of funds to environmental and Aboriginal groups for the purpose of hiring independent experts. Intervener funding concept acknowledges that there is a need for factual balance in research projects where the loss and/or benefit to concerned stakeholders may otherwise impair objectivity of the findings.) and the Berger’s innovative methodology in which he brought the researchers to the people directly affected by the research and heard from them exhaustively, was ‘new’ in the 1970s. 

References

(complete bibliography here)

Arbab, Farzam. 1997. “Rural University: Learning about Education and Development.” International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.

Freeman, M. 1976. Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project, Vol. 3: Land Use Atlas. Ottawa: Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs. 

Bibliography from Jackson:

Jackson, Ted. “A Way of Working: Participatory Research and the Aboriginal Movement in Canada.” in Park, Peter et al. 1993. Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada.London: Bergin and Garvey. 

Apple, Michael W. 1982. Education and Power. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bell, Daniel. 1974. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. London: Heinemann. 

Berger, T. R. 1980. Report of the Commission on Indian and Inuit Health Consultation. Ottawa: Health and Welfare Canada. 

Berger, T. R. 1985. Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission. New York: Hill and Wang. 

Bobiwash, L. And L. Malloch. 1980. A Family Needs Survey of the Native Community in Toronto. Toronto: Native Canadian Centre. 

Bottomore, Tom. 1984. The Frankfurt School. London: Tavistock Publications. 

Brice-Bennet, C. Ed. 1977. Our Footprints Are Everywhere: Inuit Land Use and Occupation in Labrador. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. 

Bronfenbrenner, Urie. 1972. “Lewinian Space and Ecological Space.” Journal of Social Issues. 33 (4). 

Castellano, Marlene Brant. 1983. “Canadian Case Study: The Role of Adult Education Promoting Community Involvement in Primary Health Care.” Unpublished manuscript. Trent University. 

Castellano, Marlene Brant. 1986. “Collective Wisdom: Participatory Research and Canada’s Native People.” Convergence. 19 (3):50-53. 

CENTRAD (Centre for Training, Research and Development). 1973. Small Business Management: Instructors’ Manual. Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. 

Colorado, Pamela. 1988. “Bridging Native and Western Science.” Convergence. 21 (2-3): 49 – 68. 

Conchelos, Greg. 1985. Participatory Oral History Research in Native Communities: Some Problems and Emerging Guidelines for Doing It. Prepared for the Conference on Participatory Research for Community Action, University of Massachussets at Amherst. 

Conchelos, Greg. 1988. “Knowledge Systems, Environmental Impact Assessment and Participatory Research.” Draft manuscript, Carleton University? Peterborough. 

Conchelos, Greg abd Ted Jackson. 1980. “Participatory Research for Community Education: Comparing Urban and Rural Experiences.” Presented to the Canadian Community Education Conference, Brandon, Manitoba. 

Lather, Patti. 1986. “Research as Praxis.” Harvard Educational Review. 56 (3): 257-277. August.

1993 Farzam Arbab elected as member of international House. . .

© Maureen Flynn-Burhoe 2002. Uploaded to aflicktion March 2009.

Qualitative Researchers at risk to emotional harm

This research resonated with my own experience providing me with a body of literature, a lexicon and and lens through which something that left me speechless might someday be spoken. 

 

“The first thing to note is that the concept of ‘duty of care’ is spelled out from the outset. This includes a reference to a moral obligation on behalf of those working in the University: The University must exercise a “duty of care” to employees and to those under supervision and this duty is recognised in both criminal and civil law. There is also a moral duty that the teacher has towards the pupil. (University ‘A’ Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Unit 2004: 4) It is then explained that it is through a system of ‘line management’ that the University’s statutory requirements are expected to be met. In University ‘A’ formal responsibilities for issues of fieldworker safety are delegated to Heads of Departments. It is therefore for the Head of Department to ensure that the risk assessment for the fieldwork is made and to ensure that safe systems of work have been established for all staff and students. Frequently the Head of Department will delegate this duty to a particular member of staff as Departmental Safety Officer, or to different research managers – PhD supervisors and Principal Investigators (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06).”

A number of authors have stated that researchers can be negatively affected emotionally and physically by research on sensitive issues (Alexander et al. 1989; Burr 1995; Cowles 1988; Dunn 1991; Gregory, Russell and Phillips 1997; Lee 1995; McCosker, Barnard and Gerber 2001). Some of the possible negative outcomes include gastrointestinal problems (Dunn 1991), insomnia and nightmares (Cowles 1988; Dunn 1991; Etherington 1996), headaches (Dunn 1991), exhaustion and depression (Ridge, Hee and Aroni 1999) and threats to physical safety (Langford 2000; Lee 1995). (Dickson-Swift et al. 2006: 857) (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06).”

“There are two manifestations of resistance to researchers documented in the literature. One relates to unwillingness on the part of potential research participants to cooperate, and to be obstructive, and the other relates to unco-operativeness on the part of those connected with research participants – for example ‘gate keepers’. For anthropologists the separation of these two sites of resistance is often complicated, as in a study of a particular community there might be no distinction between a participant and a gate keeper (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06:32).”

The process of ‘pain by proxy’ described by Moran-Ellis (Moran-Ellis 1997: 181) appears to have resonance for many researchers. The emotional strain of having to deal with distressing situations or narratives can be acute. It should be noted that there is also a literature concerned with the emotional impact of disturbing data on those not directly involved with the gathering of the data. Transcribers and PIs have been singled out as particularly vulnerable to this effect (McCosker et al. 2001). Hochschild’s description of ‘deep acting’ (Hochschild 1983: 42-3), may mask levels of upset or even trauma suffered by researchers who feel their professional integrity would be brought into question if such upset were acknowledged. However, increasingly there is recognition that the issue of emotional well-being is of great importance to researchers, research institutions and the integrity of qualitative research itself (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06:34).

“With regard to PhD students, several contributions highlighted the ambiguous position of research students when it comes to the requirements of PhD research and risk to well-being. It is often the case that a precondition of PhD funding in the social sciences is that it is original research. In some instances this means that the specific research arena has not been previously entered. Therefore the potential risks in such research arenas are, to certain extent, untested. In these circumstances it is inevitable that PhD students become their own risk assessors and the least experienced in research can find themselves in the most exposed positions when it comes to potential harm (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06:34).”

“There was discussion of what one contributor called ‘re-entry shock’. This was described in relation to both returning to a research site, but also adjusting back to a ‘normal’ life after extended periods of field research. One researcher reported the isolation they felt when trying to readjust to their life after particularly intense fieldwork. The final area of discussion in the emotional impact involved the possible damage done by the misrepresentation of results, particularly in popular media. Once again the need for specialist training and awareness programmes to be provided through institutions was highlighted (Bloor, Fincham and Sampson 2007-06:45).”

Sampson, Helen; Bloor, Michael; Fincham, Ben. “A Price Worth Paying? Considering the `Cost’ of Reflexive Research Methods and the Influence of Feminist Ways of `Doing.’ Sociology, 42:5:919-933 (2008) DOI: 10.1177/0038038508094570.

Abstract: “Drawing on analysis of relevant literature, focus groups, and web-based discussion board postings, assembled as part of an inquiry into risks to the well-being of qualitative researchers, it is argued that emotional harm is more prevalent than physical harm and may be particularly associated with reflexivity and the important influence of feminist research methods. The particular concern of feminist researchers with reflexivity, with research relationships and with the interests of research participants may make them especially vulnerable to emotional harm.”

Bloor, Michael; Fincham, Ben; Sampson, Helen. 2007-06. Qualiti (NCRM) Commissioned Inquiry into the Risk to Well-Being of Researchers in Qualitative Research.

Risk to emotional well-being of researchers involved in qualitative research, Role conflict, Anxiety, Isolation, Resistance, Unanticipated long term impact of research, Staying emotionally/psychologically safe

 

 

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Commissioned Inquiry. 2006-03. “Risk to well-being of researchers in qualitative research“

Original Call for Evidence: Submissions/evidence are invited as part of an inquiry into risks to the well-being of researchers in qualitative research. Those persons submitting evidence may wish to draw our attention to lessons to be learned from experience. We are interested in submissions based on the experiences of researchers, research supervisors, members of ethics committees and anyone else involved in any aspect of the conduct and management of qualitative research. Submissions may embrace practical, regulatory and/or ethical issues and risks may include threats to mental/emotional health as well as exposure to physical hazards. The Inquiry is being conducted as part of the activities being undertaken by ‘Qualiti’, the Cardiff Node of the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s National Research Methods Centre. The aim of the inquiry is to produce guidelines for good practice of value to researchers, supervisors and other parties.

Broad Overview: There are risks to researchers in undertaking fieldwork. Some of these are obvious, some less so. These risks may impact on the physical, emotional or social well-being of researchers. Whilst there has been a concentration of effort in ensuring research ‘subjects’ are protected from the potentially harmful consequences of research (through ‘informed consent’ for example), there has been much less thought about protection of researchers from potential harm. It is likely too that researchers undertaking qualitative fieldwork are exposed to particular forms of risks, which arise from the characteristic emphasis of qualitative approaches on conducting research in naturalistic settings.

Qualitative researchers may experience a range of risks. Some risks relate to the physical well-being of researchers and correspond to conventional health and safety considerations in employment of all kinds. It is not difficult to think of situations in which researchers may be at risk of violence or other physical danger. Equally, researchers may become emotionally threatened, where, for example, the data being collected are distressing or the settings emotionally taxing. These different types of risk reflect the objectives of the research, the settings in which it is conducted and the characteristics of the participants in the research, both ‘subjects’ and researchers.

Researcher risks are a matter of urgent interest to a range of parties, not just researchers, but also research supervisors, research funders, insurers, ethicists, occupational health and safety personnel and others. Evidence and opinions are invited from all interested parties.

There have been past occasions where qualitative researchers have entered the field without fully understanding the implications of the research setting on their well-being. This is a situation paralleling a failure of ‘informed consent’, researchers should be able to make judgements as to the suitability of a research context with regard to ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ risk of harm to them. Clearly, it is desirable to develop ‘good practice’ guides and recommendations to reduce risks to qualitative researchers. However, practice guides should be such that they do not threaten the integrity of the research process itself. This is especially pertinent given that much qualitative research is carried out in naturalistic settings and, more specifically, is frequently dependent upon the quality of the relationships between ‘subjects’ and researchers.

It is recognised that researcher risk may vary by gender as well as by setting. Submissions are welcomed which document and explore this gender dimension.

This inquiry aims to collate and analyse accounts of qualitative research where issues of risk may have been present to locate these accounts in the existing research methods literature and to draw out practical recommendations.

Moderated Forum: Evidence for the inquiry will be gathered via a moderated web-based forum. On this forum contributors will be asked to submit evidence under one of four topic themes. This evidence will then be placed on the website in an appropriate topic stream. It is anticipated that aside from gathering evidence this will also generate online discussion around issues arising from evidence.

Screen Teens for Most Extreme Consequence of Psychiatric Illness: Suicide

The most extreme consequence of mental illness is suicide. Acute psychiatric emergency utterly changes people, especially youth, causing extreme social isolation. Yet in 2008 mental illness remained ” a public health crisis [. . .] shrouded in misconceptions and misunderstandings. [. . .] These illnesses are serious, disabling, sometimes crippling, and all too often fatal. They deserve to be treated with respect, and those who suffer from them should not experience prejudice,” says Dr. Milliken. “If we treat both the illness and the individual with respect, without fear and in a straightforward manner, then we will legitimately look at trying to provide a range of options to help those individuals recover and resume their place in our families, our friendships, and our society, just as we do for other medical conditions.”

• “In Ontario, an estimated 530,000 children and adolescents have treatable mental illnesses, but only 150,000 are getting care.
• The youth suicide rate — 18 deaths per 100,000 — actually understates the loss of life because many kids overdose on drugs or die in violence. It also masks the staggeringly high rate — 108 per 100,000 — among aboriginal youth.
• Children wait one third longer than adults for psychiatric care in Ontario. They wait seven times as long as patients needing MRI or CT scans.
• Canada produces just 10 child psychiatrists a year (Goar 2005-02-11).”

Timeline

1958 The Canadian federal government started funding hospitals but excluded asylums (Bacic 2008-08).

1970s Canadian Federal Policies of “deinstitutionalization forced patients out of [mental health] care with no investment in community supports for [mental health] sufferers (Bacic 2008-08). Dr. Donald Milliken, president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and a practitioner with nearly 40 years of experience, recalls his experience as a medical resident in 1970: “They gave me the keys to a ward and said, ‘There are 100 patients in there. Discharge 50.’ G&M“

2005-02-11 Senator Michael Kirby, head of the committee examining Canada’s mental health system met with “30 child psychiatrists, medical researchers, mental health advocates and parents at a
roundtable on kids and mental health, organized by business leaders and hosted by Scotiabank. [. . . ] Canada has the “worst adolescent suicide rate among the world’s leading industrial powers. Every year, 300 kids between the ages of 10 and 19 kill themselves [C]anada is doing an abysmal job — worse than the United States, Japan, Israel, Bulgaria, Belarus or Ukraine — of addressing the root causes of teen suicide (Goar 2005-02-11).”

2006-05 Senators Michael Kirby and Wilbert Joseph Keon tabled the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology report entitled “Out of the Shadows at Last: Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada.”

2006-12-28 “In the United States, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among persons 15 to 19 years of age. In 2005 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16.9% of U.S. high school students seriously considered suicide, and 8.4% had attempted suicide at least once during the preceding year (Friedman 2006-12-28).”

2008 The Globe and Mail printed a week-long series entitled “Breakdown: Canada’s mental health crisis.” “Columnists André Picard, Dawn Walton and Elizabeth Renzetti examined critical aspects of Canada’s mental health crisis, including how one-third of general hospital beds are filled with mentally ill patients, how 70 per cent of people with severe mental illness are working despite their illness, and how jails and penitentiaries have become warehouses for the mentally ill [. . . ] “Canada still doesn’t have a coherent strategy for treating the mentally ill,” says Ed Greenspon, The Globe and Mail’s editor-in-chief.” (Bacic 2008-08)

Who’s Who

Jennifer Chambers, co-ordinator of the Empowerment Council, an advocacy group for Canadian Association of Mental Health patients.

Anita Szigeti, lawyer for the Empowerment Council, an advocacy group for Canadian Association of Mental Health patients.

Vahe Kehyayan, director of the Psychiatric Patient Advocacy Office.

Simon Davidson, chief of psychiatry at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

Senator Michael Kirby, heads of the committee examining Canada’s mental health system.

Donald Milliken, past-president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

Richard Guscott, a Hamilton psychiatrist who specializes in treating children with mood disorders.

Jean Wittenberg heads the infant psychiatry program at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

Peter Szatmari, a specialist in autism who heads the psychiatry division at McMaster University.

Nasreen Roberts, director of adolescent in-patient and emergency services at Queen’s University.

Webliography and Bibliography

Bacic, Jadranka. 2008-08. “Landmark series on Canada’s mental health crisis gets people talking.” Canadian Psychiatric Aujourd’hui.

CPA. 2008-10. “Youth and Mental Illness.” Canadian Psychiatric Association.

Goar, Carol. 2005-02-11. “Tackling the issue of teen suicide.” TheStar.com

Friedman, Richard A. 2006-12-28. “Uncovering an Epidemic — Screening for Mental Illness in Teens.” New England Journal of Medicine. 355:26:2717-1719

Kirby, Michael J. L.; Keon, Wilbert Joseph. 2006-05. “Out of the Shadows at Last: Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada.” The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.

Expert Jury on Public Policy by Consensus: Institute of Health Economics

The Institute of Health Economics partnered with … to host a Consensus Development Conference in Calgary on October 9-10, 2008 on diagnosis and treatment of depression.

“The purpose of a Consensus Development Conference is to evaluate available scientific evidence on a health issue and develop a statement that answers a number of predetermined questions. A group of experts present the evidence to a panel, or “jury”, which is an independent, broad-based, non-government, non-advocacy group. The jury listens to and questions the experts. The audience is also given the opportunity to pose questions to the experts. The jury convenes and develops the consensus statement, which is read to the experts and the audience on the morning of the final day. The statement is widely distributed in the Canadian health care system (BUKSA Final Program 2008-10).”

…..

“According to most recent estimates, nearly 1.2 million Canadians aged 15 and older suffer from depression.[1] With approximately 4% of Canadians reporting having had a major depressive episode within the past 12 months,[2] depression is the most prevalent mental health condition in Canada, and is projected to be the leading cause of burden of disease in high-income countries by the year 2030.[3]“

Bibliography and Webliography

1. Canadian Council on Social Development. A Profile of Health in Canada. Retrieved June 10, 2008, from http://www.ccsd.ca/factsheets/health/.
2 Gilmour. H., Patten, S. (2007). Depression at work. StatsCan Perspectives, November, 19-33.
3 Mathers, C.D., & Loncar, D. (2006). Projections of Global Mortality and Burden of Disease from 2002 to 2030. PLoS Medicine, 3(11), e442.
4 Beaudet, M.P., & Diverty, B. (1997). Depression an undertreated disorder? StatsCan Health Reports, 8(4), 9-18.
5 Wang, J.L. (2007). Depression Literacy in Alberta: Findings From a General Population Sample. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 52(7), 442-9.

Objectives
• To develop a consensus statement on how to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of depression in adults.
Participants will be able to:
• Describe the various types of depression and prevalence in Canada and Alberta
• Outline the key impacts of depression on individuals, families and society (including workplace)
• Outline the risk factors of depression including genetics, childhood experiences and relation to substance abuse
• Outline the most appropriate ways of diagnosing depression
• Describe the current treatments for depression and what evidence is available for their safety and effectiveness
• Describe the obstacles for effective management of depression
• Identify key research gaps in the field of depression

Prevent PTSD: End War

I have always thought she took too many risks and someday she would pay the price. Her mother had gone missing in an Alberta town in the 80s and was never found. Whenever I am with her I feel her mother’s eyes trying to see her daughter through mine. In some contorted fashion I cannot help but admire the way she lets herself follow her crazy instincts that compel her to park her flashy red sports car, get out and just sit down on the curb beside one of the 4000+ homeless people in Calgary just because she felt his “aura.” Her language is situated in some vague space between spoken word poetry and folk physics. And when she drops by unexpectedly I just automatically put on the teapot and take out the china. There’s always a story and I never know what is fiction and what is real but it all seems to matter somehow. When she leaves I feel exhausted.

While she sat there alongside the others a woman stopped and tried to give her money too. She didn’t feel insulted. She just felt she was supposed to hear this man’s story. He was a veteran from the war in Iraq and he was suffering from PTSD [1]. It somehow made those stories we read about “out there” seem closer to “here and now” in Calgary.

Suicide prevention is a primary concern for Bostonian Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., staff psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs in Boston in his work with Viet Nam war veterans. The suicide statistics among Vietnam war veterans are higher than American soldiers who died in Vietnam (MHAT). While their names do not appear on the Memorial Wall, their faces are reflected on its surface.

The numbers of suicides among veteran-soldiers of the Irag OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and Afghanistan theaters have reached epidemic proportions. In 2003 the US military engaged a team of mental health experts to investigate unprecedented numbers of psychiatric casualties.

“It is baffling, if not astonishing, that these military psychiatrists, supposed experts in combat-related stress, have so normalized war that it is overlooked as the source of the disease they have been sent to diagnose, that its horror can be thus discounted and its psychic effects rendered invisible (Shay 2006:2).”

Shay argues that wars have provided scientists and doctors with an ongoing supply of combat-traumatized soldiers including material to enhance understanding of the etiology of soldier-veteran suicides. He claims that war itself is a disease that kills and maims bodies, and ravages the minds of those who engage in it. In the 20th century US (and Canadian?) soldiers were at a much higher risk of becoming a psychiatric casualty (and death by their own hands) than death by enemy fire (Shay 2006:2). And the psychological ravages of war are not restricted to veteran-soldiers. The mental wounds are not restricted to those directly involved but also are inflicted upon civilians and society at large. In fact, Shay argues forcefully that Herman’s groundbreaking work on trauma and recovery (1992, 1997) can be applied to societies as well.

Shay claimed that the “structure, organization and fundamental culture” of 20th century US military ventures contributed to the trauma suffered by soldiers. He challenges distorted histories about why the Viet Nam war ended. He asked a question he cannot answer but felt compelled to raise:

“[Did] and in what ways, [US Vietnam War soldier's] resistance or refusal in the face of moral outrage serve[...] to protect an individual psyche from the effects of an overwhelming traumatic experience[?] (Shay 2006:2).”

The human practice of war, a state-sponsored activity which causes lethal physical, emotional , spiritual and psychological trauma, can be ended. An end to war is an intergenerational project similar to ending the human practice of slavery. “It has been with us since time began.” “It is part of human nature.” “It is part of every culture and found in every part of the world (Shay 2006:xii).”

The end the human practice of war involves “creating trustworthy structures of collective security, within which citizens of every state would have a well-founded confidence in their security from attack by another country [or from within as in the case of genocide perpetrated on a targeted population within the borders of a nation-state]- backed up be reliable expectation of prompt, effective and massively multilateral armed intervention (Shay 2006:xii-xiii).”

Shay refers to Emmanuel Kant’s essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” [4] in which Kant argued that even in a peaceful world where ruinous wars have passed away, police-like soldiers, would be necessary. Shay is not calling for peace through war, but peace from ruinous wars (2006:xiii).

Notes

1. During the American Civil War the disorder was called “irritable heart;” in WWI it was called “shell shock,” in WWII it was “battle fatigue” and now it is called Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Shay 2006:2-3).

2. The suicide of her husband, a Vietnam veteran, provided the impetus for Penny Coleman to research the “why question” and the result is the book entitled Flashback.

3. Judith Herman (1992, 1997) described responses of intrusions or flashbacks as a reflex in which the mind attempts to integrate [explain, contextualize, make tolerable?] an intolerable memory. When the “intolerable memory” fails to be integrated, wounds remain open and healing cannot take place. This may provoke a contradictory reflex where the mind protects itself by numbing, “forgetting” or avoiding the intolerable memory. Intolerable memories can be triggered automatically and repeatedly. Defense mechanisms of avoidance and numbing create their own problems and make the sufferer even more vulnerable. Herman called this self-perpetuating cycle, an “oscillating rhythm” between two intolerable states of being (intrusion and constriction) where healing and equilibrium remain elusive, a dialectic of trauma.

“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom (Herman 1997:Introduction).”

4. Kant also included notions of “hospitality” providing all with the freedom to emigrate with an anticipation of hospitality from the nation-state to which they were immigrating. He imagined a world of nation-states governed by republican governments and a global body of governance, a league of nations. His ‘conversation’ on world peace is ongoing.

Meanwhile, convoluted arguments are offered by political science professor, Erik Gartzke, who warns of the “possible pitfalls of a capitalist peace” (Perpetuating Peace forthcoming). Gartzke has used the Fraser Institute Economic Freedom Index to argue that ensuring economic freedom (including the freedom of the military industries) is more effective than forms of governance in the reduction of violent conflict.

US military professionals themselves are not militarists. Militarists who argue against an end to war include U.S. military industries and their most enthusiastic allies in politics and the media, many of whom seem to imagine that war exists to provide them with an income and/or an adrenalin rush (Shay 2006:xi).

Webliography and Bibliography

Coleman, Penny. 2006. Flashback: Post traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War. Boston: Beacon Press.

Durkheim, Emile. Suicide.

Herman, Judith Lewis. 1992 [1997]. Trauma and Recovery: the aftermath of violence- from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: Basic Books.

Hopper, Jim. Excerpts from Trauma and Recovery.

Shay, Jonathan. 2006. “Foreword.” in Coleman, Penny. 2006. Flashback: Post traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mental Health Assessment Team (MHAT)

Fantasy Palace, Iqaluit, Nunavut June 27, 2002

Fantasy Palace, Iqaluit, Nunavut June 27, 2002

Originally uploaded by ocean.flynn

This is a partial truth, more like a flicktion, or a dream, or the virtual than the real. It’s not science or art, more like an invention or innovation. Pieces of this a flicktion are scattered throughout my semi-nomadic cybercamps like tiny inukshuk on a global landscape. It mimics visual anthropology but isn’t. It imitates ethnography but lacks the objectivity. There are words written, pictures taken of events, dates, settings, stages and characters without an author. Maybe it’s the wrong venue in a photo album of beaming faces, stunning scenery, professional photographers, travelers, techies, retirees. But we can all choose to follow each others sign posts in this cyberspace or move on. This is the power of this new social space spun in CyberWeb 2.0.

Cultural ethnographers are supposed to return to their academic spaces, sharpen their methodological tools to a tip that almost cuts the paper they write on (and too often the culture, pop or otherwise they are writing about). You’re not supposed to return from the field with their your mind numbed from the frosted words of those who were seduced by the gold mine of benign colonialism, their voices confident, mocking, paternalistic, jaded by years, or decades of northern experience (1970s-2002). Your were supposed to leave the field with the pace of your beating heart uninterrupted inside your embodied self. You weren’t supposed to leave your a chunk of your soul in that graveyard in Pangnirtung on the Cumberland Sound. This is just lack of professionalism. Get a grip. Just write that comprehensive, proposal, dissertation. Move on. It’s just the way it is.
In this coffee shop sipping a cup of freshly brewed French Roast, (better than a Vancouver Starbucks!), SWF listened with her eyes. She was compassionate but ever so slightly distant. She doesn’t seem to realize how much others from the outside can perceive her knowledge. It is what at times makes her intimidating. Her three generation life story is the stuff of Inuit social history. She seems to almost be unaware of how important that story is. She was surprised that the First Nations cared about the creation of Nunavut. I remember our first class together. She spoke so softly but she was so firm, so insistent, modest and dignified. The wails I had heard by the open graves that still echo in my mind, were all too familiar to her. Slowly, insistently she explained to me as if I really needed to listen, remember, register this. “We do not need your tears. We have enough of our own. We do not need you to fix this. We need your respect. We need you to not make it worse. We need you to listen to us, really listen. Alone, with no resources an elder has been taking them out on the land. She gets no funding. What she has done works. The funding is going elsewhere on projects that are promoted by the insiders. Inuit like her are not insiders.”

Paulo Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello

In a provocative gesture author Paulo Coelho lets his novel’s ten? protagonists interpret the intriguing, elusive main character, Athena or the witch of Portobello, as the principle narrator, 44-year-old journalist Henry Ryan (who is not one) provides ‘raw transcripts” from interviews he collected. I keep thinking of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Perhaps this is ten characters in search of Truth?

At the end of the novel the reader is still uncertain about her character since of course her mother, teachers, ex-husband, employers and followers all see her through their own eyes from different perspectives. Even her name changes throughout. On the last page is Athena truly alive or dead? Did she ever have a special gift that surpassed the everyday? Does she really love others or does she use them for her own ends? Is she manipulative and selfish? Is she a victim or a victimizer? Or is she both. As each protagonist “speaks” we learn as much about them as individuals with their weaknesses and strengths as we do about Athena.

In a final gesture, an innovative twist to the reader-author relationship, the author then hands the story over to his readers and invites them to reinterpret it in a video format by claiming the role of one of the protagonists.

When I set the book down after reading through it twice, I sensed that the profound descriptions of the spiritual power inherent in the pursuit of excellence in creative expression came close to describing Paulo Coelho’s own writing.

I am now working on integrating some of these to illustrate this point . . .

“[L]ife is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true. [To] reverse the ordinary process may well be considered a madness: that is, to create credible situations, in order that they may appear true [...] to make seem true that which isn’t true, … to give life to fantastic characters on the stage? … Are you not accustomed to see the characters created by an author spring to life in yourselves and face each other? Just because there is no “book” which contains us, you refuse to believe . . . [I]t isn’t possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with the image of ourselves, but throws our likeness back at us with a horrible grimace?” … Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy. [E]verybody argues and philosophizes when he is considering his own torments.” (Pirandello/6 characters 1921)

to be continued off to see the fireworks

‘The second kind is done with great technique, but with soul as well. For that to happen, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be clothed in tragedy and are transformed into simple facts encountered along the way.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

“But then, how many of us will be saved the pain of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment to the next? I don’t just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might survive a day, a week, a few years, but we’re all condemned to lose. Our bodies remain alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive the mortal blow. The perfect crime – for we don’t know who murdered our joy, what their motives were, or where the guilty parties are to be found. Are they aware of what they’ve done, those nameless guilty parties? I doubt it, because they too – the depressed, the arrogant, the impotent, and the powerful – are the victims of the reality they created. They don’t understand and would be incapable of understanding Athena’s world (Coelho/Heron Ryan, 44, journalist. The Witch of Portobello. 2007:5-6.)”

“On Sunday afternoon, while we were walking in the park, I asked her to pay attention to everything she was seeing and hearing: the leaves moving in the breeze, the waves on the lake, the birds singing, the dogs barking, the shouts of children as they ran back and forth, as if obeying some strange logic, incomprehensible to grown-ups. ‘Everything moves, and everything moves to a rhythm. And everything that moves to a rhythm creates a sound. At this moment, the same thing is happening here and everywhere else in the world. Our ancestors noticed the same thing when they tried to escape from the cold into caves: things moved and made noise. The first human beings may have been frightened by this at first, but that fear was soon replaced by a sense of awe: they understood that this was the way in which some Superior Being was communicating with them. In the hope of reciprocating that communication, they started imitating the sounds and movements around them – and thus dance and music were born (Coelho/Pavel Podbielski, 57, owner of the apartment. The Witch of Portobello. 2007).”

/

“Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other’s response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to some degree materializes all reality . . . Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue (Mikhail Bakhtin 1984:292-293).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:50).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:59).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:75).”

“. . . (Coelho 2007:76).”

“My way of approaching Allah – may his name be praised – has been through calligraphy, and the search for the perfect meaning of each word. A single letter requires us to distil in it all the energy it contains, as if we were carving out its meaning. When sacred texts are written, they contain the soul of the man who served as an instrument to spread them throughout the world. And that doesn’t apply only to sacred texts, but to every mark we place on paper. Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:76).”

“Writing wasn’t just the experience of a thought but also a way of reflecting on the meaning of each word (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:76).”

“‘Now you must educate only your fingers, so that they can manifest every sensation in your body. That will concentrate your body’s strength.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

I did not only teach her calligraphy techniques. I also tried to pass on to her the philosophy of the calligraphers. ‘The brush with which you are making these lines is just an instrument. It has no consciousness; it follows the desires of the person holding it. And in that it is very like what we call “life”. Many people in this world are merely playing a role, unaware that there is an Invisible Hand guiding them. At this moment, in your hands, in the brush tracing each letter, lie all the intentions of your soul. Try to understand the importance of this.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

“Naturally, if she respected the brush that she used, she would realise that in order to learn to write she must cultivate serenity and elegance. And serenity comes from the heart. ‘Elegance isn’t a superficial thing, it’s the way mankind has found to honour life and work. That’s why, when you feel uncomfortable in that position, you mustn’t think that it’s false or artificial: it’s real and true precisely because it’s difficult. That position means that both the paper and the brush feel proud of the effort you’re making. The paper ceases to be a flat, colourless surface and takes on the depth of the things placed on it. Elegance is the correct posture if the writing is to be perfect. It’s the same with life: when all superfluous things have been discarded, we discover simplicity and concentration. The simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be, even though, at first, it may seem uncomfortable.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:78).”

“I can combine two things . . . (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

” ‘There are two kinds of letter,’ I explained. ‘The first is precise, but lacks soul. In this case, although the calligrapher may have mastered the technique, he has focused solely on the craft, which is why it hasn’t evolved, but become repetitive; he hasn’t grown at all, and one day he’ll give up the practice of writing, because he feels it is mere routine. ‘The second kind is done with great technique, but with soul as well. For that to happen, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be clothed in tragedy and are transformed into simple facts encountered along the way.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

“‘Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he’s merely repeating the same hammer blows, but anyone trained in the art of calligraphy knows that each time the blacksmith lifts the hammer and brings it down, the intensity of the blow is different. The hand repeats the same gesture, but as it approaches the metal, it understands that it must touch it with more or less force. It’s the same thing with repetition: it may seem the same, but it’s always different. The moment will come when you no longer need to think about what you’re doing. You become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word.’ (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:80).”

Calligraphy is not a mere repetition of beauty but an individual, spontaneous, personal and creative gesture (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:83).

In order for a great artist to forget the rules, first she must know them and respect them (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:83).

in the blank spaces between the letters. In the moment when a note of music ends and the next one has not yet begun (Coelho/Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin 2007:99).

Vosho Bushalo, a 65-year-old Roma restaurant owner commented about Athena, “If I speak of her now in present tense, it’s because for those who travel, time does not exist, only space (Coelho/Bushalo 2007:104).

Coelho, Paulo. 2007. The Witch of Portobello.

Bibliography: Scientific Knowledge

This selected bibliography includes entries that might be useful in teaching, learning and research on Ethical, Legal and Social dimensions of science and technology; How scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order; Maintaining social order through scientific knowledge

They might be categorized under

Science> Sociology of Science > Scientific Knowledge >

Social Studies of Science

Technology > Theory >

I am intrigued by the role of the semantic web in mapping knowledge systems and I hope I am contributing to the development of this powerful tool for sharing data, information and as a small step towards knowledge and wisdom as part of a process of a renewed concept of civilization.

Key Words, tags, folksonomy

sociology of science, politics of nomenclature, Golem, peer review, authority in scientific knowledge, authority, trust in scientific knowledge, honesty in scientific knowledge, ways of knowing, certainty, sunset of certainty, sunset of ontological certitude, ontological certitude, replication, mere replication, Michael Mulkay, Social Studies of Science, mapping systems and moral order, science in the American polity, states of knowledge, science and social order, social production of scientific knowledge, social production of social order, social order and social cohesion, social dimensions of scientific writing, life sciences, science advice, expert advice in public policy, social dimensions of science and technology, politics of science and technology, expertise studies, property formation, risk disputes, biotechnology, problematic authority, data with-holding, intellectual property, scientific exchange, expert advice studies, contemporary politics, credibility of expert advice, the production of credibility of expert advice, challenging expert advice, sustaining expert advice, how advisory bodies bring authoritative advice to the public stage, measuring bio-economics, bio-societies, public proofs, making things public, map-making, mapping social order, Sokal affair, research tools, human values, ethics, science and technology and human values, ethical and legal and social issues, knowledge and technology and property,

Lists

trust, honesty, authority

ethical, legal, social

Dichotomies

Conjectures and Refutations

Bibliography and Webliography

Altman, Lawrence. 1990. “The Myth of ‘Passing Peer Review.” in Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication. Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc.

Bayer, Ronald. 1987. “Politics, Science, and the Problem of Psychiatric Nomenclature: A Case Study of the American Psychiatric Association Referendum on Homosexuality.” in Scientific Controversies: Case Studies in the Resolution and Closure of Disputes in Science and Technology, edited by H. Tristam Englehardt Jr and Arthur Caplan. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Collins, Harry. 1985. “Replicating the TEA-Laser.” in Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice, edited by Harry Collins Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London, UK: Sage.

Collins, Harry and Trevor Pinch. 1988. The Golem at Large: What You Should Know About Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Collins, Harry and Trevor Pinch. 1993. The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge University Press.

Council_of_Biology_Editors. 1990. “Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication.” Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc.

David, Paul A. “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY.”

Eisenthal, Bram D. 2003. Fervent and curious attracted by legend of Golem. Prague, CZ: Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Epstein, Steven. 1995. “The Construction of Lay Expertise: AIDS Activism and the Forging of Credibility in the Reform of Clinical Trials.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 20.

Gieryn, Thomas. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48.

Golem. A Prague’s Guide – Spanish Synogogue.

Goodwin, Charles. 1997. “Professional Vision.” American Anthropologist 96.

Hafton, John and Paul Plouffe. 1997. “Science and Its Ways of Knowing.” Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Haraway, D. 1991a. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

Haraway, Donna. 1983a. Cyborgs?

Haraway, Donna. 1983b. “The Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s or A Socialist Feminist Manifesto for Cyborgs.” in History of Consciousness Board. University of California at Santa Cruz. : Submitted to Das Argument for the Orwell 1984 volume.

Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14.

Haraway, Donna. 1989. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science.

Haraway, Donna. 1991b. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Pp. 149-181 in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html haraway_donna/cyborg_manifesto.htm

Haraway, Donna. 1991c. “Daughters of Man-the Hunter in the Field, 1960-80.” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York: Routledge and Kegan.

Haraway, Donna. 1996. “Situated Knowledges: the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Pp. 249-263 in Feminism and Science.

Haraway, Donna. 1997. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™. New York: Routledge.

Harnad, Stevan. 1995. “Interactive Cognition: Exploring the Potential of Electronic Quote/Commenting.” Pp. 397-414 in Cognitive Technology: In Search of a Humane Interface, edited by B. Gorayska and J.L. Mey. http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001599/00/harnad95.interactive.cognition.html

Hilgartner, Stephen. 2003. What Is Science? Introduction to Science and Technology Studies: Cornell University. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Hughes, Thomas P. 1987. “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems.” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Hughes Thomas, and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Jasanoff, Sheila. 1995. “The Law’s Construction of Expertise.” in Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Jasanoff, Sheila. 1997. “Civilization and Madness: The Great BSE Scare of 1996.” Public Understanding of Science 6. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Kamenetz, Rodger and Steve Stern. 2003. Jewish Icons of Prague: Kafka and The Golem.

Knorr-Cetina, Karin and Michael Mulkay. 1983. “Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science.” London, UK: Sage. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Latour, Bruno. 1983. “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World.” in Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science, edited by Karin Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay. London, UK: Sage. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Latour, Bruno. 1987. “Literature.” in Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Lewenstein, Bruce. 1992. “Cold Fusion and Hot History.” Osiris 7:135-163. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

MacKenzie, Donald. 1987. “Missile Accuracy: A Case Study in the Social Processes of Technological Change.” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Hughes Thomas, and Trevor Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Merton, Robert K. 1942 [1973]. “The Normative Structure of Science.” in Sociology of Science, edited by Robert K. Merton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mukerji, Chandra. 1996. “The Collective Construction of Scientific Genius.” in Cognition and Communication at Work, edited by Yrjo Engestrom and David Middleton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mulkay, Michael. 1976 [1991]. “Norms and Ideology.” in Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Mulkay. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Mulkay, Michael and Nigel Gilbert. 1986 [1991]. “Replication and Mere Replication.” in Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Mulkay. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

NSF. 1997. “Full Text of Twenty-Year Vision Statement.” National Science Foundation, Center for Science, Policy, & Outcomes. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Pinch, Trevor. The Sociology of Science: Cornell University http://www.sts.cornell.edu/Syllabi/S&TS%20442%20-%20Fall%2099.htm.

Pinch, Trevor. 1981. “The Sun-Set: The Presentation of Certainty in Scientific Life.” Social Studies of Science 11. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Popper, Karl. 1962 [1997]. “Science: Conjectures and Refutations.” in Science and Its Ways of Knowing, edited by John Hafton and Paul Plouffe. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Shapin, Steven. 1995. “Trust, Honesty, and the Authority of Science.” in Society’s Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine, edited by National_Academy_of_Science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

SJFF. “The Golem: San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.” San Francisco. http://www.bestofberkeley.com/view_article.asp?article_id=136

Stossel, Thomas. 1990. “Beyond Rejection: A User’s View of Peer Review.” in Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication.

Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors, Inc. http://www.sts.cornell.edu/syllabi/sts201.htm

Thieberger, F. 1955. The great Rabbi Loew of Prague: His life and work and the legend of the golem. London, UK: Horovitz Publishing Co.

Vuletic, Dean. 2003. The Return of the Golem. Prague, Czechoslovakia: Czech Radio 7, Radio Prague. http://www.radio.cz/print/en/33264

Wegener, Paul and Carl Boese. 1920. “The Golem.” San Francisco.

Notes

A number of these bibliographic entries are based on bibliographies compiled by Professors Tarleton Gillespie and Stephen Hilgartner, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA. Stephen Hilgartner studies the social dimensions and politics of contemporary and emerging science and technology, especially in the life sciences. His research focuses on situations in which scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order-a theme he has examined in studies of expertise, property formation, risk disputes, and biotechnology. His book on science advice, Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama, won the 2002 Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science.

How scientific knowledge is implicated in establishing, contesting, and maintaining social order

Maintaining social order through scientific knowledge

key words: Social Studies of Science, mapping systems and moral order, science in the American polity, states of knowledge, science and social order, social production of scientific knowledge, social production of social order, social order and social cohesion, social dimensions of scientific writing, life sciences, science advice, expert advice in public policy, social dimensions of science and technology, politics of science and technology, expertise studies, property formation, risk disputes, biotechnology, problematic authority, data with-holding, intellectual property, scientific exchange, expert advice studies, contemporary politics, credibility of expert advice, the production of credibility of expert advice, challenging expert advice, sustaining expert advice, how advisory bodies bring authoritative advice to the public stage, measuring bio-economics, bio-societies, public proofs, making things public, map-making, mapping social order, Sokal affair, research tools, human values, ethics, science and technology and human values, ethical and legal and social issues, knowledge and technology and property,

Hilgartner, Stephen. 2000. Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama, Stanford University Press.

“Behind the headlines of our time stands an unobtrusive army of science advisers. Panels of scientific, medical, and engineering experts evaluate the safety of the food we eat, the drugs we take, and the cars we drive. But despite the enormous influence of science advice, its authority is often problematic, and struggles over expert advice are thus a crucial aspect of contemporary politics. Science on Stage is a theoretically informed and empirically grounded study of the social process through which the credibility of expert advice is produced, challenged, and sustained. Building on the sociology of Erving Goffman, the author analyzes science advice as a form of performance, examining how advisory bodies work to bring authoritative advice to the public stage. This lively and accessible analysis provides not only new insights about science advice but also a fresh look at the social dimensions of scientific writing.” (from the book jacket)

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Making the Bioeconomy Measurable: Politics of an Emerging Anticipatory Machinery” (Comment). BioSocieties 2(3):382-6, 2007. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Overflow and Containment in the Aftermath of Disaster” (Comment). Social Studies of Science, 37(1):153-58, 2007. http://www.hurricanearchive.org

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Voting Machinery, Counting, and Public Proofs in the 2000 US Presidential Election.” Michael Lynch, Stephen Hilgartner, and Carin Berkowitz, in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. MIT Press, 2005.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Making Maps and Making Social Order: Governing American Genome Centers, 1988-1993.” In From Genetics to Genomics: The Mapping Cultures of Twentieth-Century Genetics, edited by Jean-Paul Gaudillière and Hans-Joerg Rheinberger, Routledge, 2004.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Mapping Systems and Moral Order: Constituting Property in Genome Laboratories.” In States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order, edited by Sheila Jasanoff, Routledge, 2004.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Biotechnology.” In Smelser, Neil J. and Paul Baltes, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2:1235-40, Elsevier, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Acceptable Intellectual Property.” Journal of Molecular Biology, 319(4):943-46, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Data Withholding in Academic Genetics: Evidence From a National Survey.” Eric G. Campbell, Brian R. Clarridge, Manjusha Gokhale, Lauren Birenbaum, Stephen Hilgartner, Neil A. Holtzman, David Blumenthal, Journal of the American Medical Association 287(4):473-80, 2002.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Data Access Policy in Genome Research.” Pp. 202-18 in Arnold Thackray, ed., Private Science: Biotechnology and the Rise of the Molecular Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Access to Data and Intellectual Property: Scientific Exchange in Genome Research.” Pp. 28-39 in National Academy of Sciences, Intellectual Property and Research Tools in Molecular Biology: Report of a Workshop, National Academy Press, 1997. http://www.nap.edu/books

Hilgartner, Stephen. “The Sokal Affair in Context.” Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 2, Autumn 1997, pp. 506-22.

Hilgartner, Stephen. “Biomolecular Databases: New Communication Regimes for Biology?” Science Communication, Vol. 17, No. 2, December 1995, pp. 240-63.

Teaching:

Hilgartner, Stephen. Spring 2007 – (S&TS 391/Govt 309/AmStud 389) Science in the American Polity: 1960- Now TR: 1:25-2:40, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Spring 2007 – (S&TS 411) Knowledge, Technology and Property MW: 2:55-4:10, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Fall 2006 – (BSOC/S&TS 205) Ethical Issues in Health and Medicine TR: 10:10-11:25 + Section, 4 Credits

Hilgartner, Stephen. Fall 2006 – (S&TS 645/Govt 634) The New Life Sciences: Emerging Technology, Emerging Politics T: 2:30-4:25, Credits

Links:

Department of Science & Technology Studies: www.sts.cornell.edu

Undergraduate major in Biology & Society: www.sts.cornell.edu/programbsoc.php

Ph.D. Program in Science & Technology Studies: www.sts.cornell.edu/programphd.php

Cornell New Life Science Initiative: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues: http://www.genomics.cornell.edu/focus_areas/elsi/

Voting Technology Archive: http://www.sts.cornell.edu/voting_technology_archive/

Luhmann: Complexity can be Handled only by Complexity

A summary by Maureen Flynn-Burhoe of Hornung (1998 ) on Luhmann: Complexity: non-intervention and observation

In Fuchs discussion of the work of Niklas Luhmann, an impassioned theorist. Luhmann argued that the role of sociology was to develop a theory that would provide a better and more complex understanding of the world. This could be done by developing a description and analysis of modern society through observation of society in its minute details. However, in its role as a science, sociology should not try to provide recipes to improve the world. The functional differentiation between sociology and politics should be respected.

In this way ethics should not determine sociological theory rather ethics depends on sociological theory.

Professor Hornung, the President of the University of Marburg, acknowledged that Luhmann’s restriction to observation and non-intervention may seem to be an unaffordable luxury in crisis-ridden times. Hornung admits that sociologists “are in fact under daily pressure in our jobs to “produce” both scientific results and students to the precise profiles requested by the economy and the “market”. But he cautions against ignoring Luhmann’s lesson that

“complexity can be handled only by complexity (Hornung 1998).”

Shifting Words, Shifting Worlds

In the address written at the time of Niklas Luhmann death in 1998, Dr. Bernd R. Hornung, , described Luhmann as the “most important contemporary intellectual leader and representative of systems science in sociology.” The influence of his new challenges and new perspectives extended far beyond sociology. Empassioned by theory, Luhmann provided new and influential perspectives which challenge the “army of “regular scientists.” Luhmann combined the theory of the organization of the living of Maturana and Varela with his own complex reasoning and “transferred it to sociology, where it became soon a cornerstone of his own monumental construction of theory.” In this theory the observer plays a key role by observing minute differences which impact on shifting terms, words and worlds (Hornung 1998).

“A considerable part of his life work consists in applying his abstract, complex frame of theoretical reference to virtually all areas of society, from the internal workings of administration to global ecological problems, from politics and economy to arts, love, and religion. Aiming at a universal theory of society no sector of society was left out in his attempt to apply, test, and further develop his theory.” In order to expand his theory Luhmann entered into a scholarly confrontation with Habermas’ theory (1971). See Hornung (1998).

Luhmann, a student of Talcott Parsons at Harvard in 1960-1, is a successor to but not a follower of, Parsons. They both attempted to develop a grand sociological theory that was universal and all encompassing (Hornung 1998).

In 1968, as Professor of Sociology at the newly founded Reform University of Bielefeld he devoted his full energy to his theory of modern society. He was inspired somewhat by Husserl’s phenomenology but primarily by systems theory and cybernetics in his own efforts to develop a description of society (Hornung 1998).

Luhmann’s Methodology: History, Legal Theory not Empirical Measurement

Informed by his love for history and using the tools of legal theory which involved library research and case studies Luhmann’s project was to study society as a whole and develop a theory of modern society. His methods were not those of a natural scientist. He did not use an ethnological style of participant observation nor empirical measurement, data collection, and statistical hypothesis testing as a way to construct theory (Hornung 1998).

Review of Joan Huber’s (1995) ASA Centennial Essay

Review of Joan Huber’s 1995 Centennial Essay for the American Sociological Association

JoanHuber’s 1995 Centennial Essay for the American Sociological Association presents a view of sociology as a discipline in which there are two unbridgeable intellectual approaches. In the first group are the scholarly, viable academics, the true scientists capable of producing replicable research who, as

“disinterested observers seek[...] objective truth with universal validity that is based on the notion of a reality independent of human thought and action (Searle 1993:69 cited in Huber).”

On the other side of this intellectual chasm are the academics who have postmodernist tendencies, which for her encompasses feminists, anti-rationalists and relativists. They operate mostly in the humanities seeking to discover truth about the universe while rejecting the rationalist philosophy that has sustained Western European civilization for centuries. They infiltrate sociology because of its interdisciplinary nature. Huber’s believes sociology’s status as a science is in direct correlational to its status within academia.

For Huber the solution lies not in negotiating a larger space for “who?” but in compliance to the expectations of administrators. To “get busy” producing data invokes an image of pencil pushers who do not have time to ask the larger questions (Huber:212-3).

My question is, who then will ask those questions? And who is “we”? For Huber the survival of sociology as a discipline depends on the exclusion of those academics whose research does not conform to her definition of science. Whereas in more prosperous times, the interdisciplinary nature of sociology was seen as a strength, in a period of crisis within the discipline, Huber views it as a weakness.

Models of Profitability Impact on Sociology, Cultural Representation and Identity Issues

Max Weber’s statement about endemic bureaucracy creating an “iron cage of the future” proved to be prophetic. Current debates in social sciences reflect the contradiction inherent in the late 20th century in which increasing bureaucratic process in all forms of governance collides with theoretical enquiries demanding constant reappraisals of these same processes. In the university setting, sociology as a discipline is situated at the centre of these debates. In practice sociologists as civil servants can become trapped into working on narrow, exclusive and specialized enquiries that allow them to operate only with hard facts such as statistics that resemble scientific methods. At worst this transforms them into bureaucrats operating in a safe and acceptable environment while investigating short-term answers to questions they did not formulate, questions that were not informed by a contemporary theoretical framework. It indeed becomes Weber’s cage.

Antirationalists, which for Huber meant anti-science, undermined the credibility of the entire discipline of sociology. Relativism in Britain and postmodern anti-rationalist tendencies in the late 1960s examined the social sciences from within. Knowledge producers, including social scientists were accused of being ‘eurocentric’ and by extension “parochial”. Huber rejects these anti-rational tendencies and feels they should not be tolerated within a discipline already in crisis (Huber:205, Gulbenkian 1995:52). Huber feels theoretical debates are hollow and they contribute to the crisis in sociology since the 1970s with the closing of departments of sociology, the increase of stress among sociologists and skepticism on the part of the media and by extension the public on the role of the sociologist. This has led to a lowering of moral among sociologists as well as a lowering of median professorial salaries (Huber:209). University administrators, already under pressure because of fiscal restraints, became increasingly critical of sociology departments which in their view were centres for leftist radicalism attracting student activists and creating units that were increasingly difficult to control, administer and manage.

She argues that sociologists have to recognize the feasibility of their research. Academic teaching and research facilities require funding which is currently highly competitive. Funding is not just based on ability but on a legitimized ability to provide something that no one else can. The question then is, “What do we do as sociologists) that no one else does as well?”

Current trends in many academic and cultural institutions’ policies are strongly influenced by business models of profitability. This could prove detrimental to issues of identity and representation and to an adequate reflection of the complexities of society and culture.

Huber’s uncritical positivism and objectivism reflects sociology divorced from its implications. Huber grants the safe acceptable forms of knowledge a privileged status. She concludes her paper with a call to sociologists to produce “solid facts” about the way societal organizations function and change in order to clarify the the problems experienced by individuals and groups. Giving it a comparative advantage, sociology supplies the knowledge needed to run welfare states. Sociology needs practical problems that will stimulate pressure for action, attract resources and test theories. The data produced by sociologists should be generated through the sharpest theoretical and methodological tools, while maintaining historic continuity (Huber:203).

Joan Huber is more concerned about the question “What do we do as sociologists, that gives us the right to make a claim for legitimacy as a scientific discipline ?”

My question, “Who are we as sociologists?” should be at least recognised and investigated before we just “get to work” and produce these “solid facts about the way societal organizations function and change in order to clarify the experistates, to stimulate pressure for action, attract resources and test theories (Huber:213-4).”

It is not enough, declares Rorty, to be willing to run welfare states, stimulate pressure for action and attract resources if there is not a fundamantal belief that it is feasible economically (Rorty:1996). This feasiblity is based on belief. By its very nature it cannot be a solid fact.

Gulbenkian 1995:52

Huber, Joan. 1995. “Institutional Perspectives on Sociology” American Journal of Sociology

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 1999. Review of