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- Convenors:
-
Jarita Holbrook
(University of Edinburgh Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Lois Trautvetter (Northwestern University)
Anissa Tanweer (University of Washington)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
In studying astrophysicists, observatories and Indigenous astronomy, what are the relationships that are built with these communities? Is research being done considering CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility and Ethics)? Are the relationships integral to transformation?
Long Abstract:
At the 2023 4S Honolulu panel “Cultural Astronomy: The meeting point of Sea, Sky and Land,” we explored research that spans the astronomy space including engagements with Indigenous knowledge holders, efforts to promote astro-tourism, and historicising the lives of astrophysicists. This year, we plan to focus on STS’s move away from extractive research models, and want to explore various aspects of the relationships between researcher and research subject. How do you see your presence and your research as changing the communities in which you do research? Did you have the intention of sharing your results with the community you study? Relevant to the theme ‘Making and Doing Transformations,’ have you used creative ways of presenting your research to the science communities or Indigenous communities that you engage with? Did you co-create any part of your project with your community? In terms of the data generated, how are you engaging with the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles? The panel organizers are part of the Social Science team of the LSST Discovery Alliance Catalyst program.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Lois Trautvetter (Northwestern University) Anissa Tanweer (University of Washington) Jarita Holbrook (University of Edinburgh Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) Erin Leahey (University of Arizona) Jana Diesner (TU Munich)
Long abstract:
In 2021, we—a team of disciplinarily diverse social scientists—were invited by the LSST Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA) to participate in the development of privately-funded postdoctoral fellowships that focus on the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The LSST project aims to produce an unprecedented 10-year long high-definition video of the night sky, and is expected to produce ground-breaking discoveries about the universe. Uniquely, fellowships were awarded to both astronomers and junior scholars in the social science and humanities.
In our collaboration with astronomers, we social scientists came to take on multiple, overlapping roles. We serve on the Steering Committee with influence over processes for selecting fellows, as members of the Fellows’ mentoring committees, and also as research grant recipients of the LSST Discovery Alliance who are pursuing our own research about the LSST community and astrophysics more broadly.
We hope to share the complexity and ‘messiness’ of our multi-layered positionality as social scientists studying relationships via examples involving research, leadership, and mentoring within a scientific community. We also want to raise pressing questions and hope to learn from discussion with others. How do we interpret and frame our research findings given our own influence over our phenomenon of study? How do we decide when to intervene and when to observe? How do we ethically navigate asymmetrical relationships with individuals who simultaneously may not only be research subjects but also be mentees or researchers?
Alex McGrath (University of California, San Diego)
Short abstract:
Storytelling through historical exhibits and archival presentations is a creative and effective way for drawing participants into discussions of astronomical legacies and futures.
Long abstract:
When engaged with storytelling that juxtaposes biographical histories of astronomers with global events of imperialism, material extraction, and colonization, astronomers can imagine the project of decolonizing their discipline with renewed energy and evidence. With experience building historical exhibits for the scientific community at the Wolbach Library of the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), I argue for storytelling as a creative way for drawing participants into discussions of astronomical legacies and futures. Presenting exhibits ranging from women’s labor to transnational expeditions, I connected the CfA community with a narrative of their scientific history told through archival documents, photographs, and instrumentation. I will discuss the reception of an exhibit that I constructed for Wolbach in 2019 based on my master’s research on Harvard astronomers expeditioning to the Andes in the 1890s and settling amidst historical geographies of knowledge and nation building. This research was based on the holdings of the Wolbach (formerly Harvard College Observatory) special collections, a one-sided repository that indirectly documents the encounter between North Americans and Indigenous Andeans. The history I tell from these sources discloses a familiar story of exploitation that resonates with concerned astronomers. The stakes are raised when administrative entities close libraries and consolidate historical resources, as the CfA announced for Wolbach’s integration into the Harvard Libraries in early 2024. Without a colocation of history and practice, how will astronomers interact with their scientific legacy, and how will STS critics gather the historical sources needed to tell didactic stories of local, historical relationships?
Maaike Pierik (Institute for Science in Society, Radboud University) Lotte Krabbenborg (Institute for Science in Society, Radboud University)
Long abstract:
Many of the world’s top astronomical facilities are based on land that originally belonged to indigenous people groups. Increasingly, astronomers are urged to reflect and act on the societal responsibility they have in building, operating and using these facilities. Astronomers and local communities alike have a growing awareness that astronomy has benefitted from “settler colonialism” by neglecting cultural, historical and environmental heritage of local communities. People from both communities argue that astronomers should reject these benefits in the future by engaging in early stage dialogue with local communities and pushing for science that benefits all.
Empirical insights are lacking into how astronomers interpret and deal, in real life settings, with citizens who ‘talk back’ to science. What societal needs and concerns are (in)visible to astronomers and why? Using multi-sited ethnography, I will deliver thick descriptions on how astronomers develop opinions about societal problems and construct their responsibilities, including notions of ‘doing good science’. This research will focus on the Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT) project which is currently being developed in Namibia. By also conducting field work within Namibian societal groups, this research aims to generate feedback loops between astronomers and society.
This talk will highlight preliminary results of the ethnographic research done so far within the AMT team and describe how feedback loops have been created between the researcher and the researched. It will also describe how this research is working towards co-creating, with astronomers, frameworks for discussing societal issues around astronomical facilities.
Mirjana Uzelac (University of Alberta)
Long abstract:
This paper examines the challenges of doing astronomy outside of the Global North, in this case, in the Eastern-European context, as well as complexities in promoting one’s work. At the same time, it presents specific challenges of doing laboratory ethnography as an insider (“native”) anthropologist. As part of my Doctoral thesis at a Canadian university, I performed ethnographic research at the Belgrade Astronomical Observatory (AOB), Serbia. A native of Belgrade and Serbia, I was therefore a cultural insider, as well as the outsider, due to my affiliation with a Western university. This created specific effects and reactions among the astronomers at the Observatory, who represent a group of local scientists performing their work outside of the Western cultural sphere.
Serbian astronomers and astrophysicists face numerous challenges, particularly in terms of promoting their research in the global scientific community dominated by Western scientists, institutes, and scientific journals. There are several key strategies that Serbian astronomers employ to mitigate these obstacles. One key component is forming informal networking with scientists abroad. My own presence at the Observatory was often seen as part of such networking, in terms of promoting their work “in the West”. In this paper, I map the complexities of this relationship and highlight the strategies that local astrophysicists use to stay current in the international circles.
Jarita Holbrook (University of Edinburgh Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Long abstract:
The ASTROMOVES project relies on interviews with astrophysicists and those in related sciences. Relationships began with the request for interviews and continue past the official end of the project. The consent form which included three possible levels of consent, gave details on what would be done with their interview data and how it would be presented publicly. Because documentary films are part of the research outputs, informal permissions were granted for each clip used in the films and presentations though as far as university ethics were concerned this was not needed. Reflecting on the C.A.R.E. principles of Indigenous Data Governance, A is for authority to control their own data. Similarly, as the researcher, I felt that each person interviewed had the authority to control their image and thus gave them several opportunities to approve or disapprove how I used film clips that featured them. This additional informal permission had at least a two-fold benefit in that as a researcher I felt comfortable presenting the film clips and I imagine that the people featured trust me more. When writing articles, I evoked pseudonyms for quotes, but these were edited to remove identifiers. As with the film clips, I shared drafts of articles with the people quoted to ensure that they thought they were sufficiently unidentifiable. I worked with the non-heterosexual people that I interviewed to decide how to represent the third gender category which is now LGBTQIA+. This presentation explores these aspects of the relationship between me and the scientists interviewed.