Week 3 Reflection

This week’s authors discussed the details of the relationship between feminism, environmental studies, and the scholarship around each of these very important yet seemingly distant ideas, recognizing that the fact that women have historically been left out of narratives related to the environment and other science-based topics. Some specifics from this week’s readings included, Mealanie Harris’ “Ecowamanism: Black Women, Religion, and the Environment,” which thoroughly addressed and explained the intricacies of ecowomanism and what that means in relationship to the environment, and Karen Backtrand’s “Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance,” which addresses the participatory nature of science, especially that of the environment and how this can be seen in the actions of both policy makers and average citizens alike.

I was particularly intrigued by Karen Backstrand’s notion of civic science, which reminded me that we are all participating in science regularly whether or not these are active decisions. This reminded me of the many decisions we each make daily, like driving or walking somewhere, using plastics or more sustainable materials, and how we dispose of things, that result in us participating in helping or hurting the environment, and thus also result in us each participating in environmental science. Although we know a lot about how these seemingly small decisions can have large impacts, it is not as often that we think of this as what Backstrand would deem “civil science” or participatory science.

Some key terms from this week’s readings include ecowomanist, civic science, and techno-science. According to Harris, “ecowomanism centers around the religious, theological, and spiritual perspectives of black women and women of color as they confront multilayered oppressions such as racism, classism, sexism, and environmental injustice” (Harris 2016:27). The idea of civic science relates to public participation in science, as in, “ a science that is developed and enacted by the citizens, who are not trained as conventional scientists” (Backstrand 2003:28). Lastly, techno-science is said to be “a system which has been formed by ideas, designers, artifacts, and end-users, among which there exists a synergistic relationship, one that exists in a specific socio-historical context” (Sedeno 2001:124).

References

Backstrand, Karen. "Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance." Global Environmental Politics, 2003, 24-41.

Harris, Mealanie. 2016. “Ecowamanism: Black Women, Religion, and the Environment.” Journal of Black Studies and Research 27-39.

Sedeno, Eulalia Perez. "Gender: The Missing Factor in STS." In Visions of STS: Counterpoints in Science, Technology, and Society Studies, 123-38. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.