Author Archives: cmasseng

Call for Action: Community Relief Aid for Putumayo, Mocoa

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From Kristina Lyons, SJRC Affiliate in Feminist Science Studies:

The capital city of Putumayo, Mocoa, where I have been engaged in research and accompanying agro-life popular processes since 2004, suffered a devastating avalanche in the early morning hours after three rivers, the Mocoa, Mulato and Sancoyaco, flooded and overtook 17 neighborhoods. At least 236 people have been killed, more than 250 more are disappeared, and hundreds are wounded and left homeless. The hospital collapsed, the bus terminal, central gas station, and market were obliterated, and there is no electricity, potable water, or most public services. I am lucky that my closest friends, colleagues, compañerxs, and adoptive family members are safe thus far. However, there are many people still unaccounted for and countless others in shock and needing basic supplies, water, food, and support of all kinds.

If you have learned about Putumayo through my or other’s work, heard a talk, read a piece, or feel moved and motivated by this news and the situation occurring, please contact me. I am organizing donations for local community relief, mutual aid, and reconstruction projects in Mocoa. While there is so much troubling and devasting phenomena happening in the world, Mocoa is a place that holds my heart and continues to shape all that I am as an anthropologist and person.

More details can be found at the link below. This money will go to trustworthy local organizations that I personally know and have been working closely with. The objective of this fundraiser is to provide not only short term aid, but also middle to long-range capacity building support for community organizations, processes, and initiatives in the wake of such a tragedy.

Thank you in advance for any solidarity. Please circulate among friends and networks that may be concerned and interested in supporting such efforts. krlyons@ucsc.edu

April 4 | Telling the Truth: Objectivity and Justice

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Illustration of the world meltingTuesday April 4, 2017
4:00-6:00 PM
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231

The terms “post-fact”, “post-truth”, and “post-reality” are now being used to label the new era we have entered. We are already seeing the erasure of climate data from servers and websites, and purveyors of the truth, including climate scientists, journalists, and academics are being put on warning. (The Climate Scientists witch-hunt and the Professor Watchlist are just two of many indicators). Data refuge efforts are underway amid concerns that the incoming administration will wage a war on scientific expertise.At the same time that it is of upmost importance that facts, truth, and reality be asserted to counter the normalization of lies and fake news used to obscure the truth and manipulate the public, there is a large body of scholarship showing the non-innocent and often times harmful use of these terms in ways that collude with the forces of power, including colonialism, racism, militarism, etc.

We have created this research cluster to help us think through these issues during these extraordinary times.

Convened by Karen Barad, our first three meetings on Objectivity & Justice proved to be a generative. During our first meeting we talked about what the terms ‘fact’, ‘truth’, and ‘reality’ signal to each of us. At our second meeting we had a wonderful discussion of the last chapter of Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism and we came up with some different approaches we might useful take in moving forward. For our third meeting we read and discussed Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. For our fourth meeting we have agreed to watch the film classic “Inherit the Wind,” and to continue our discussion of possible interventions.

Science & Justice invites you to our fourth meeting Tuesday April 4th 4-6pm. We will begin with a discussion of “Inherit the Wind” (available on Youtube). Even if you don’t have time to watch the film you are welcome to join us. And as always there will be snacks!

April 12 | Book Discussion with Victoria Pitts-Taylor

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Wednesday, April 12, 2017
12:00-1:00 PM
SJRC Common Room Oakes 231

Join SJRC fellows and affiliates for lunch and a discussion with Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Professor of Sociology and Science in Society, and Chair of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexualities Program at Wesleyan University. Professor Pitts-Taylor will be discussing Chapter One of her most recent book The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics. Lunch will be provided to those who RSVP to Kate Weatherford Darling (kdarling@ucsc.edu) by Wednesday, April 5th with any diet restrictions. Seating is limited to 20.

On April 13th at 3:30pm, Victoria will visit UCSF for a seminar and reception hosted by the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and sponsored by the School of Nursing Dean’s Office.

Details for the UCSF Talk:
Thursday, April 13th from 3:30pm-5pm
UCSF Laurel Heights Campus, Gay Becker Conference Room (inside IHA, 3rd Floor)
3333 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94118

April 19 | Food For Thought’s Unequal Healthscapes in California’s “Biohub”

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Wednesday, April 19th
5:30-7:30 pm
Namaste Lounge

Hosted by the College Nine and Ten CoCurricular Programs Office, SJRC Assistant Director, Kate Weatherford Darling will present her research centering social justice and health inequalities in the discussion of biomedicine and US healthcare and policy. Asking the question: What would it take to build new California “healthscapes” (Clarke 2010) with visions of disability justice and health equity?

Unequal Healthscapes in California’s “Biohub”

California’s recent Tech Boom buoyed the Bay Area economy and transformed the political geography of the state and a global center of wealth. Venture capital / philanthropic investment along with public policies to promote “entrepreneurism” are rapidly changing the spaces, places of biomedical science and healthcare practice. In this talk, Kate offers an incomplete map of our unequal “healthscapes” (Clarke 2010), the cultural, economic and political terrains of health. Drawing on findings from her current and forthcoming research, she asks: What would it take to build new California healthscapes with visions of disability justice and health equity?

Katherine Weatherford Darling is Assistant Director at the Science and Justice Research Center and faculty in UCSC Sociology Department. Her research and teaching bridges Sociology of Health, Illness and Disability and Feminist Science Studies. Her current projects span diverse topics including: Post-Genomic epidemiology and HIV/AIDS science and health policy in the U.S. With UCSC and Bay Area collaborators, her new projects examine how the social and built environments of Bay Area’s tech and biotech economies are impacting the health of low-income Californians.

Flyer for Food for Thought

Flyer for Food for Thought

April 20 | Data Under Threat: Rescuing Environmental Data in the Trump Era

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Thursday, April 20, Noon-1pm
2nd Floor Instruction & Outreach Alcove
McHenry Library

In recognition of Endangered Data Week, Dr. Lindsey Dillon will discuss her recent experience as a coordinator of a network of academics and non-profits monitoring potential threats to federal environmental and energy policy data at the onset of the Trump administration.

Discussion will follow the presentation. Bring your lunch, questions, observations and experiences. Learn about data rescue efforts such as the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), the End of Term Web Archive, #DataRescue, DataRefuge, DataLumos, and Open Access Week.

Dr. Dillon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCSC where she is affiliated with the Environmental Studies Department and the Science & Justice Research Center. She is also chair of the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), “an international network of academics and non-profits addressing potential threats to federal environmental and energy policy, and to the scientific research infrastructure built to investigate, inform, and enforce.”

Endangered Data Week (April 17-21, 2017) is a new, nationwide effort to raise awareness of threats to publicly available data.

April 25 | Lunch with Uppsala

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‘… what happened in Sweden last Friday’.
Mythologies and Methods in post-fact times

Tuesday April 25, 2017
12:00-1:00 PM
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231

Join Science & Justice in welcoming “Knowledge production beyond the norms” a transdisciplinary research node from Uppsala university, Sweden. Core of their scope of interest are the effects of political realities and epistemological assumptions that structure knowledge production, as well as the subversive potential of academic research – especially in relation to gender, sexuality, race and species, and in intersection with artistic investigations.

This seminar starts with short presentations by Uppsala University’s Ann-Sofie Lönngren (Associate Professor of Literature, Gender Studies) and MA-students Rebecka Göransdotter (Rhetorics), Cecilia Luzon (Literature) and Henrietta Olsson (Genocide Studies). As a background to the discussion, participants are advised to read this blog post by Irish media scholar Gavan Titley (Maynooth university): http://wildcatdispatches.org/2017/02/21/gavan-titley-in-trumps-sweden-or-malmo-switzerland/

“What happened in Sweden last Friday? You tell me.” This was the response many Swedes posted on their facebook-sites after US president Donald Trump’s address on February 18th, when he referred to an unspecified event in Sweden to strengthen one of his arguments about immigration. This was just one example of the kind of rhetoric that, at least since Brexit and the last US election, has come to be seen as characteristic for an era of “post-truth” and “alternative facts”. Although it can certainly be argued that facts have never been “pure” and that ideology is always an active part in the interpretation of the world, the material effects of the current political development on the academic production of knowledge need to be addressed. How do certain nations, times, species, landscapes, groups and individuals come to function as mythological tropes for political purposes, and with what effects? How can the academic challenges be defined, which matters are urgent to address in current and future productions of knowledge? What methods, theories and material are relevant to engage in order to construct potentially subversive, ‘just’ knowledge in post-fact times?

Lunch will be provided to those who RSVP to Cleo Woelfle-Erskine (cwoelfle@ucsc.edu) by Wednesday, April 19th with any diet restrictions. Seating is limited to 20.

April 25 | Online Film Screening: The State of Eugenics

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Tuesday, April 25 at 3:30 PST
What is the legacy of government sponsored eugenics programs? Learn more and join the discussion following a special screening of THE STATE OF EUGENICS on Tuesday, April 25 at 3:30pm PT presented by Facing History and Ourselves and Reel South.

Between 1933 and 1974, the state of North Carolina ran one of the most aggressive eugenics programs, sterilizing more than 7,600 men, women and children. This film follows the journey of survivors, legislators and journalists who insist the state confront its role in the tragic, forced sterilization of thousands of Americans thought to have “undesirable” genetics.

Duration: 90 minutes

More details are at http://bit.ly/tsoe2017
Promotional Video: https://vimeo.com/195666167
RSVP: http://bit.ly/tsoe2017

Further Reading:

2017 Los Angeles Times Editorial: California needs to do more than apologize to people it sterilized

2016 PBS: Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States

2014 Center for Investigative Reporting: Female prison inmates sterilized illegally, California audit confirms

2014 Press Enterprise: Female inmates, some in Chino, unlawfully sterilized

2014 California State AUDIT: Sterilization of Female Inmates Some Inmates Were Sterilized Unlawfully, and Safeguards Designed to Limit Occurrences of the Procedure Failed

2013 Center for Investigative Reporting: Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval

2013 Center for Investigative Reporting Video: Sterilized Behind Bars

 

April 26 | Seeing Like a Valley

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Wednesday April 26, 2017
4:00-6:00 PM
Engineering 2, room 599

Seeing like a Valley seeks to bring together scholars, policy makers, artists and practitioners to understand the place of the Valley in shaping not just new technologies, but moral visions.  It will explore how these visions help and hinder abilities to see and respond to today’s pressing issues and problems: growing inequalities and entrenched forms of discrimination; political polarization; declining trust in institutions; changing labor practices.

At this first meeting, we will evaluate the project proposal and ask people to respond to the prompt:

I am in [this position].  From here I see …. in SV.

This is very much a project in formation, and we look forward to your input.  We feel it is a critical time to think with the Valley about how to disrupt in a manner that addresses the serious social issues of the day.  This requires a collective effort of people who can see differently and critically.

Seating is limited to 40. Register early!

May 2 | What’s Left of Progressive Politics?

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Tuesday, May 2nd

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Humanities 2, Room 259

 

The Center for Emerging Worlds presents a Roundtable Discussion with Dr. Vijay Prashad, Dr. Lisa Rofel, Dr. Mayanthi Fernando, and Asad Haider

Dr. Vijay Prashad is Professor of International Studies and South Asian History at Trinity College, Connecticut and a renowned journalist. He was trained as a historical anthropologist and received his Ph.D from the University of Chicago. Prashad’s work addresses issues like race and imperialism, race and immigrant communities in the US, geopolitical changes in the global South after 9/11, the propagation of policies that produce and exacerbate income inequalities, the possibilities of political solidarities among social movements committed to progressive change in the world, and the role of national governments and regional alliances in the context of economic and political changes in the world.

For more information, contact sjetha@ucsc.edu

May 9 | Telling the Truth: Objectivity and Justice

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Illustration of the world meltingTuesday May 9, 2017
4:00-5:30 PM
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231

The terms “post-fact”, “post-truth”, and “post-reality” are now being used to label the new era we have entered. We are already seeing the erasure of climate data from servers and websites, and purveyors of the truth, including climate scientists, journalists, and academics are being put on warning. (The Climate Scientists witch-hunt and the Professor Watchlist are just two of many indicators). Data refuge efforts are underway amid concerns that the incoming administration will wage a war on scientific expertise.

At the same time that it is of upmost importance that facts, truth, and reality be asserted to counter the normalization of lies and fake news used to obscure the truth and manipulate the public, there is a large body of scholarship showing the non-innocent and often times harmful use of these terms in ways that collude with the forces of power, including colonialism, racism, militarism, etc.

We have created this research cluster to help us think through these issues during these extraordinary times.

Convened by Karen Barad, the research cluster met throughout the winter and spring quarters and proved to be quite generative. During our first meeting we talked about what the terms ‘fact’, ‘truth’, and ‘reality’ signal to each of us. At our second meeting we had a wonderful discussion of the last chapter of Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism and we came up with some different approaches we might useful take in moving forward. For our third meeting we read and discussed Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. For our fourth meeting we discussed the film classic “Inherit the Wind,” and talked about the science march, and continued our discussion of possible interventions.

Science & Justice invites you to our fifth and final meeting of this academic school year on Tuesday May 9th 4:00-5:30pm. We will begin with a discussion of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents. Even if you don’t have time to read the novel you are welcome to join us. And as always there will be snacks!