New book out in March.
Scientists, Experts, and Civic Engagement Walking a Fine Line 166 pages Binding: Hardback Other editions: ebook PDF, ebook ePUB Edited by Amy E. Lesen, Tulane University, USA
http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472415240
Key questions in the transition from theoretical reason to practical reason - if we want to change the world for the better rather than passively interpret it ....
How do scientists, scholars, and other experts engage with the general public and with the communities affected by their work or residing in their sites of study? Where are the fine lines between public scholarship, civic engagement, and activism?
Key questions here concerning the nature of expertise, the social construction of knowledge (especially scientific knowledge), the assimilation of knowledge, and civic engagement.
How do scientists, scholars, and other experts engage with the general public and the communities where we do our work and who are affected by our work? What is our responsibility to do so? How can we strive to do work that contributes to improving the lives of our fellow citizens?
Where are the fine lines between public scholarship, civic engagement, and activism? What are the considerations facing scholars and experts when our work puts us on various sides of those fine lines? When is the relationship between scholars and community members fruitful and successful, and when is it challenging? What are some of the methodological and ethical issues experts must consider when civically engaging and carrying out public scholarship? Are academics and experts who engage in community work and public scholarship acknowledged and rewarded for doing so by their institutions? What are the roles and responsibilities of academic institutions themselves in contributing to and participating in their surrounding communities? What is the seldom-heard perspective of citizens who have collaborated with academics?
Why Civic Engagement Now? Humans in every locale are grappling with complex, global problems with numerous causes, widespread and often unpredictable effects, and impacts on both social and environmental systems. Addressing these problems will require the coordinated and combined efforts of—and effective communication between—biophysical scientists, social scientists and other scholars, policymakers, industry, and communities to solve, plan for, and remediate. Involvement of private citizens and local communities in policy decisions is often deemed crucial. Public discussion and inclusion of “local factors” is important in creating policy that is “socially acceptable”. Local cultural norms, local history, and local attitudes affect the values private citizens have and the decisions they make.
The ability of a community to, for example, formulate policy on adaptation to climate change depends on “culture and place-specific characteristics that can be identified only through culture and place-specific research”. These local, cultural, and place-specific considerations are often neglected when scientists, other scholars, and policy-makers (who very often do not live in the community where they are working, have no personal history there, and/or have little contact with many sectors of the local population) carry out their work. Policy tends to be more successful when developed by a collaborative group that includes “a relatively balanced mix of governmental and non-governmental participants”. Many scholars of public policy advocate a democratic process that involves “ordinary” citizens. Academics are thus increasingly being called upon to do interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary work to more effectively study and address these multifaceted phenomena that span environmental and social realms. Scholars are also urged to engage and communicate more effectively with community members, policy makers, and other “stakeholders”.
Important stuff.