Analyze

(E)valuation processes often have unintended consequences. European ocean researchers find themselves caught in a tight bind between the pressure to produce cutting edge, scientifically excellent research and research critical for ocean futures amidst climate crisis. Changing funding landscapes, oriented increasingly towards short-term projects (Franssen & de Rijcke 2019), are both highly competitive and unable to provide sufficient resources for the forms of long-term observation and monitoring that could improve scientific understandings of the ocean. Although collaborating with industry has become increasingly contentious in recent years, especially in regards to the energy sector, ocean research has a long history of relying on industry and military resources (Oreskes 2021). While most – if not all – the researchers I work with feel uneasy about these connections, they see little alternative. If they can’t obtain resources from anywhere else, and they view the outcomes of their research as critical for the future of the ocean, then what? In their efforts to improve research, then, governance practices can perpetuate the very knowledge gaps they seek to address, weaving individual researchers into a precarious web of accountabilities in the process: to themselves, to their communities, and to the ocean itself. 

Source

Ashkin, Jacqueline. 2023. "Evaluating Science, Valuing the Ocean." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

(E)valuation processes often have unintended consequences. European ocean researchers find themselves caught in a tight bind between the pressure to produce cutting edge, scientifically excellent research and research critical for ocean futures amidst climate crisis. Changing funding landscapes, oriented increasingly towards short-term projects (Franssen & de Rijcke 2019), are both highly competitive and unable to provide sufficient resources for the forms of long-term observation and monitoring that could improve scientific understandings of the ocean. Although collaborating with industry has become increasingly contentious in recent years, especially in regards to the energy sector, ocean research has a long history of relying on industry and military resources (Oreskes 2021). While most – if not all – the researchers I work with feel uneasy about these connections, they see little alternative. If they can’t obtain resources from anywhere else, and they view the outcomes of their research as critical for the future of the ocean, then what? In their efforts to improve research, then, governance practices can perpetuate the very knowledge gaps they seek to address, weaving individual researchers into a precarious web of accountabilities in the process: to themselves, to their communities, and to the ocean itself. 

Ashkin, Jacqueline. 2023. "Evaluating Science, Valuing the Ocean." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The authors productively place three bodies of theory in conversation, abolitionist theories, urban political ecology, and decolonial theory, to rewrite the intellectual trajectories of EJ as extending the legacy of the Black Radical Tradition. What are our intellectual and political genealogies as students and researchers of the quotidian anthropocene? What genealogies are we pushing against? Drawing from their examples of spaces and historical moments of interracial solidarity, what kinds of coalitions do we see ourselves partnering with and contributing to as (largely?) newcomers to the activism in Austin?

What is the energy sector's relationship to racial capitalism? How is its current configuration shaped by legacies of settler colonialism, state bureaucracy, and corporate investment? 

The system was built to serve organizations and individuals with humanitarian goals. The system gathers data from report, reviews, and users and compiles it into comprehensible information to help inform decision-making for humanitarian concerns. Portions of the app also focus on education and technical support for field researchers looking to collect large quantities of data.

The system is primarily used by researchers, scholars, and organizations with humanitarian interests. The app also has functions which would attract users that are beginning research and do not have established connections within the field as the app provides a support system.

The development of Twine was funded primarily through donations from individual investors interested in the data sharing aspects of the software and humanitarian aid organizations who benefit from the accessible data.

Twine provides information and software to set up compatible data collection systems that pool information into the larger system, which the app then makes available to its users. The system also includes a publishing and collaboration aspect which allows groups of people from all over the globe to access the same data and report on the findings together.

Data visualization is primarily determined by the type of data being gathered and the system for data collection being used. The app integrates data in order to both make large quantities of data easily viewable and understood, as well as compare studies with existing data stored on the system.

Users must be registered with the site to access any of the available features, and the registration is free. Once registered, users can immediately begin gathering their own data, analyzing the existing information, publishing reports or reviewing existing publications. The system also has several active data collection locations that are only available to registered users.