Knowledge Co-Production in Scientific and Activist Alliances: Unsettling Coloniality
Abstract
This paper examines alliances between scientists and local groups in the context of environmental justice conflicts. We analyze the trajectories of two white male scientific experts collaborating with activist groups in mining and nuclear conflicts around the world. We posit the knowledge co-production processes that take place in these collaborations can challenge (internal and external) power relations and hegemonic discourses around pollution. These collaborations can entail three types of co-production: (i) co-production of knowledge where new technical knowledge is co-created; (ii) co-production of interpretation through which knowledge is contextualized technically and politically; and (iii) the co-production of the mobilization of knowledge where different expertise collaborate in the elaboration of strategies based on their (scientific, local, Indigenous, traditional or experiential) knowledges and networks. Whilst knowledge co-production provides legitimacy and confidence to local groups; knowledge interpretation and its mobilization provide public legitimacy, visibility, and political leverage. This paper unsettles seemingly colonial processes pointing to the importance of locally driven alliances, the collaborative dynamics at play merging local and scientific expertise as well as the motivations and trajectories of scientists and local groups. Our approach makes visible how these alliances are the result of supra-local networks of support that connect scientists with local groups struggling against extractive activities.
References
Agrawal, Arun, Ashwini Chhatre, and Rebecca Hardin. 2008. “Changing Governance of the World’s Forests.” Science 320(5882): 1460–1462.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1155369.
Allen, Barbara L. 2003. Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor Disputes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Aghirin’man [Shield of the Soul, NGO]. 2011. “Etat Désastreux de la Route d’Arlit: Le Président de Aghirman Interpelle le Ministre de l’Equipement” [Disastrous state of the road to Arlit: The president of Aghirman Challenges the Minister of Equipment]. Letter to the Minister of Equipment of Niger on the situation created by the state of the Tahoua-Arlit road. Aïr Info February 3, 2011.
ANred, 2020. “La Buena Noticia es que los Pueblos Están en la Calle” [The Good News is that the Villages are in the Street]. La tinta. Accessed March 11, 2022.
https://latinta.com.ar/2020/03/marta-sahores-buena-noticia-pueblos-calle/.
Appleton Helen, Maria E. Fernandez, Catherine L. M. Hill, and Consuelo Quiroz. 2011. “Gender and Indigenous Knowledge.” In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader, edited by Sandra Harding, 55–83. United Kingdom: Intermediate Technology Publications.
https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393849-014.
Arancibia, Florencia. 2016. “Rethinking Activism and Expertise within Environmental Health Conflicts.” Sociology Compass 10(6): 477–490.
https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12374.
Bebbington, Anthony, Denise H. Bebbington, Jeffrey Bury, Jeannet Lingan, et al. 2008. “Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes.” World Development 36(12): 2888–2905.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.11.016.
⸻, Denise H. Bebbington, and Jeffrey Bury. 2010. “Federating and Defending: Water, Territory and Extraction in the Andes.” In Out of the Mainstream: The Politics of Water Rights and Identity in the Andes, edited by Rutgerd Boelens, David H. Getches, Armando Guevara Gil. London: Earthscan.
Cable, Sherry, Tamara Mix, and Donald Hastings. 2005. “Mission Impossible? Environmental Justice Activists’ Collaborations with Professional Environmentalists and with Academics.” In Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement, edited by David N. Pellow and Robert J. Brulle, 55–75. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brown, Phil, and Faith I. T. Ferguson. 1995. “‘MAKING A BIG STINK’: Women’s Work, Women’s Relationships, and Toxic Waste Activism.” Gender & Society 9(2): 145–172.
https://doi.org/10.1177/089124395009002002.
Boudia, Soraya, and Nathalie Jas, eds. 2014. Powerless Science?: Science and Politics in a Toxic World. Vol. 2. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Callon, Michel. 1999. “The Role of Lay People in the Production and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge.” Science, Technology and Society 4(1): 81–94.
https://doi.org/10.1177/097172189900400106.
Castleden, Heather, Vanessa Sloan Morgan, and Christopher Lamb. 2012. “‘I Spent the First Year Drinking Tea’: Exploring Canadian University Researchers’ Perspectives on Community‐Based Participatory Research Involving Indigenous Peoples.” The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien 56(2): 160–179.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2012.00432.x.
Conde, Marta. 2014. “Activism Mobilising Science.” Ecological Economics 105: 67–77.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.05.012.
⸻. 2017. “Resistance to Mining. A Review.” Ecological Economics 132: 80–90.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.08.025.
⸻, and Philippe Le Billon. 2017. “Why Do Some Communities Resist Mining Projects While Others Do Not?” The Extractive Industries and Society 4(3): 681–697.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.04.009.
Coombes, Brad. 2012. “Collaboration: Inter‐Subjectivity or Radical Pedagogy?” The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien 56(2): 290–1.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2012.00429.x.
Corburn, Jason. 2005. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cornwall, Andrea. 2008. “Unpacking ‘Participation’: Models, Meanings and Practices.” Community Development Journal 43(3): 269–283.
https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsn010.
Eden, Sally. 1996. “Public Participation in Environmental Policy: Considering Scientific, Counter-Scientific and Non-Scientific Contributions.” Public Understanding of Science 5(3): 183–204.
https://doi.org/10.1088/0963-6625/5/3/001.
EJAtlas, 2021. Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Accessed January 15, 2021. www.ejatlas.org.
Epstein, Steven. 1998. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Eyal, Gil. 2013. “For a Sociology of Expertise: The Social Origins of the Autism Epidemic.” American Journal of Sociology 118(4): 863–907.
https://doi.org/10.1086/668448.
Frickel, Scott. 2011. “Who are the Experts of Environmental Health Justice.” In Technoscience and Environmental Justice: Expert Cultures in a Grassroots Movement edited by Gwen Ottinger and Benjamin R. Cohen, 21–39. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
⸻, Rebekah Torcasso, and Annika Anderson. 2015. “The Organization of Expert Activism: Shadow Mobilization in two Social Movements.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 20(3): 305–323.
https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-20-3-305.
Funtowicz, Silvio O., and Jerome R. Ravetz. 1993. “Science for the Post-Normal Age.” Futures 25(7): 739–755.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(93)90022-L.
Group of Organizations of Civil Society of the Region of Agadez (GOSCRAZ). 2013a. Memorandum on the Concerns of Populations of the Regions of Agadez. Response to the Research on Mining and Oil.
⸻. 2013b. “Exploitation Minière au Niger: Le Ras-le-bol de la Région d’Agadez” [Mining in Niger: Agadez Region is Fed Up]. Aïr Info January 23, 2013.
Guta, Adrian, Sarah Flicker, and Brenda Roche. 2013. “Governing through Community Allegiance: a Qualitative Examination of Peer Research in Community-based Participatory Research.” Critical Public Health 23(4): 432–451.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2012.761675.
Harding, Sandra G., ed. 2011. The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hernández Vidal, Natalia, and Kelly Moore. 2022. “Seed Schools in Colombia and the Generative Character of Sociotechnical Dissent.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. 8(1): 171–188.
https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.487.
Horowitz, Leah S. 2011. “Interpreting Industry’s Impacts: Micropolitical Ecologies of Divergent Community Responses.” Development and Change 42(6): 1379–1391.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01740.x.
Irwin, Alan, and Mike Michael. 2003. Science, Social Theory & Public Knowledge. UK: McGraw-Hill Education.
Israel, Barbara., Amy J. Schulz, Edith A. Parker, and Adam B. Becker. 1998. “Review of Community-Based Research: Assessing Partnership Approaches to Improve Public Health.” Annual Review of Public Health 19(1): 173–202.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173.
Janes, Julia E. 2015. “Democratic Encounters? Epistemic Privilege, Power, and Community-Based Participatory Action Research.” Action Research 14(1): 72–87.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750315579129.
Jameson, Fredric. 2010. “Are We Armed Only with Peer-Reviewed Science? The Scientization of Politics in the Radical Environmental Movement.” In Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination, edited by Stefan Skrimshire, 173. London and NY: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 1996. “Beyond Epistemology: Relativism and Engagement in the Politics of Science.” Social Studies of Science 26(2): 393–418.
https://doi.org/10.1177/030631296026002008.
⸻. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. London: Routledge.
⸻. 2009. The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Kinchy, Abby J. 2010. “Anti-Genetic Engineering Activism and Scientized Politics in the Case of ‘Contaminated’ Mexican Maize.” Agriculture and Human Values 27(4): 505–517.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-009-9253-2.
Liboiron, Max. 2021. Pollution is Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Lyons, Kristina, Juno Salazar Parreñas, Noah Tamarkin, Banu Subramaniam, et al. 2017. “Engagements with Decolonization and Decoloniality in and at the Interfaces of STS.” Catalyst 3(1): 1–47.
https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v3i1.28794.
McCormick, Sabrina. 2007. “Democratizing Science Movements: A New Framework for Mobilization and Contestation.” Social Studies of Science 37(4): 609–623.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312707076598.
Medina, Eden, Ivan de Costa Marques, and Christiana Holmes. 2014. Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mignolo, Walter D. 2009. “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom.” Theory, Culture & Society 26(7–8): 159–181.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275.
Miller, Clark A., and Carina Wyborn. 2020. “Co-Production in Global Sustainability: Histories and Theories.” Environmental Science & Policy 113: 88–95.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.01.016.
Minkler, Meredith. 2004. “Ethical Challenges for the ‘Outside’ Researcher in Community-Based Participatory Research.” Health Education & Behavior 31(6): 684–697.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198104269566.
⸻, and Nina Wallerstein, eds. 2011. Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: From Process to Outcomes. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Moore, Kelly. 2009. Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945–1975. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Moran, Robert. E. 2011. “Kumtor Gold Facilities, Kyrgyzstan: Comments on Water, Environmental and Related Issues.” Prepared for Human Development Center “Tree of Life” (Bishkek) and Bankwatch (Kiev) and the Kyrgyz government. Accessed March 15, 2022.
https://bankwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Kumtor-MoranReport-31Jan2012.pdf.
⸻. 2012. “The Conga Mine, Peru: Comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Related Issues.” Prepared for Environmental Defender Law Center (USA). Accessed March 15, 2022.
Nowotny, Helga. 2003. “Democratizing Expertise and Socially Robust Knowledge.” Science and Public Policy 30(3): 151–156.
https://doi.org/10.3152/147154303781780461.
O’Connor, Martin, and Juan Martinez-Alier. 1998. “Ecological Distribution and Distributed Sustainability.” In Sustainable Development: Concepts, Rationalities and Strategies, edited by Sylvie Faucheux, Martin O’Connor, and Jan Van Der Straaten, 33–56. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ottinger, Gwen. 2013. Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges. New York University Press.
⸻, and Benjamin Cohen. 2012. Technoscience and Environmental Justice: Expert Cultures in a Grassroots Movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Moor Marianne. 2017. Remembering Robert Moran. Accessed March 15, 2022.
https://www.paxforpeace.nl/stay-informed/news/remembering-robert-moran.
Peet, Richard, and Michael Watts. 2004. Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development and Social Movements. London: Routledge.
Peluso, Nancy L. 1995. “Whose Woods are These? Counter‐Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Antipode 27(4): 383–406.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1995.tb00286.x.
Prud’homme, Alex. 2012. The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Scribner.
Ressortissants d’Agadez. 2011. “Declaration de Presse de Ressortissants d’Agadez” [Press Statement by Nationals of Agadez]. Aïr Info December 6, 2011.
Scheidel, Arnim, Daniela Del Bene, Juan Liu, Grettel Navas, et al. 2020. “Environmental Conflicts and Defenders: A Global Overview.” Global Environmental Change 63: 102–104.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102104.
Scott, Colin. 1996. “Science for the West, Myth for the Rest? The Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge Construction.” In Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge edited by Laura Nader, 69–86. New York: Routledge.
Schensul, Jean J., Marlene J. Berg, and Ken M. Williamson. 2008. “Challenging Hegemonies: Advancing Collaboration in Community-Based Participatory Action Research.” Collaborative Anthropologies 1(1): 102–137.
Shepard, Peggy M. 2002. “Advancing Environmental Justice through Community-based Participatory Research.” Environmental Health Perspectives 110.suppl 2: 139–139.
Stevens, Matthias, Michalis Vitos, Julia Altenbuchner, Gillian Conquest, et al. 2014. “Taking Participatory Citizen Science to Extremes.” IEEE Pervasive Computing 13(2): 20–29.
Temper, Leah, Federico Demaria, Arnim Scheidel, Daniela Del Bene, et al. 2018. “The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability.” Sustainability Science 13:573–584.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0563-4.
Tesh, Sylvia Noble. 2018. Uncertain Hazards: Environmental Activists and Scientific Proof. Ithaca/NY: Cornell University Press.
Topçu, Sezin. 2008. “Confronting Nuclear Risks: Counter-Expertise as Politics within the French Nuclear Energy Debate.” Nature and Culture 3(2): 225–245.
https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2008.030205.
Urkidi, Leire, and Mariana Walter. 2011. “Dimensions of Environmental Justice in Anti-Gold Mining Movements in Latin America.” Geoforum 42(6): 683–695.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.06.003.
Walter, Mariana, and Joan Martinez-Alier. 2010. “How to be Heard When Nobody Wants to Listen: Community Action Against Mining in Argentina.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies 30(1–2): 281–301.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2010.9669292.
⸻, and Leire Urkidi. 2017. “Community Mining Consultations in Latin America (2002–2012): The Contested Emergence of a Hybrid Institution for Participation.” Geoforum 84: 265–279.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.09.007.
Woolgar, Steve, and Geoff Cooper. 1999. “Do Artefacts Have Ambivalence: Moses’ Bridges, Winner’s Bridges and other Urban Legends in S&TS.” Social Studies of Science 29(3): 433–449.
https://doi.org/10.1177/030631299029003005.
Wylie, Sara, Nick Shapiro, and Max Liboiron. 2017. “Making and Doing Politics through Grassroots Scientific Research on the Energy and Petrochemical Industries.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 3: 393–425.
https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2017.134.
Wynne, Brian. 1996. “May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide.” In Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology edited by Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Brian Wynne, 40–44. London: Sage Publications.
Copyright (c) 2022 Marta Conde, Mariana Walter
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
