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(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.

This text builds from earlier conceptions of the term “land dispossession” and “land grab”. As defined by the 2011 International Land Coalition, land grabbing specifically refers to large scale land acquisitions that are “ in violation of human rights, without prior consent of the preexisting land users, and with no consideration of social and environmental impacts”. Characterization of land grabs and their resulting harms most commonly considers the effect of physical displacement and harms within the articulated “grabbed” area (Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2017;Ogwand, 2018;  huaserman, 2018). Li and Pan seek to expand the frame of analysis for land grabs beyond the site of grabbed land to consider the full extent of harms associated with land grabs both geographically (via pollution spillover to areas outside of “grabbed land”) and temporally (via latent “expulsion by pollution). 

 “While the villagers are not passive victims and have adopted various resistance strategies, the space for them to struggle and achieve success is confined and shaped by the existing power asymmetry in which local villagers, capital and local government are embedded.”  (Li and Pan, 2021, p 418). 

“...this framing of land dispossession is problematic in two aspects. Firstly, it obscures an invisible form of land dispossession in which people still maintain control of their land but its use value is damaged by pollution. This kind of indirect land dispossession could lead to expulsion, not due to the direct loss of control over land but by it being rendered useless by pollution.” Li and Pan, 2021, p 409). 

 This text employs a case study approach to characterize how villagers in a village in China have been displaced “in-place” as a result of new industrial activities within the area  (all specific details have been hidden within the publication, wherein the names of villager groups and the site of study itself is referenced only by coded letters). The scale of analysis primarily centers at the village level, though analysis of the case study itself extends towards the country level specifically when analysis of state actors are involved. 

Authors Hua Li and Lu Pan are scholars from China. Li is  affiliated with the College of Humanities and Law at Taiyuan University of Technology, wherein her research focuses specifically on water politics, environmental justice, and rural development and agrarian change. Pan is affiliated with the College of Humanities and Development at China Agricultural University. Her research interests include marginalized communities, rural development, and agrarian change.

Teach 3.11 was developed to serve students and general public. It allows the public to have more access to different books, teaching material, and research regarding disasters. The website was built in response to the Fukushima disaster of 2011, in order to provide "an educational space for understanding the history, memory, and context of social disasters" (Teach 3.11). The editorial team has members from different countries, reflecting the international collaboration that natural and nuclear disasters require. With it's availability in six different languages, public contribution and comments enabled on articles gives a global platform for discussion and sharing. They are currently accepting papers for their "Terms of Disaster" collection.

This system was built for academia worldwide to study the historical context behind technical and scientific issues related to large-scale disasters. They enhance the knowledge of scholars of where science and technology, history, and Asia meet. The site uses volunteers to translate various resources into English, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, and Chinese so many people can share in the knowledge that others have.

Students, professors, and others in academia appear to use the the site to blog about their experiences in Japan as it relates to diasters.

It appears that the funding for the development came from Nanyang Techonological University in Singapore. The system is maintained and kept current by numerous international volunteers who contribute content.