In Common

037: Pracademics and patchiness with Jessica Cockburn

Michael and Stefan spoke with Jessica Cockburn, a Lecturer in Environmental Science at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa. Jessica identifies as a "pracademic" who often works with local partners to explore how actors across a variety of contexts interact to address sustainability challenges. Her work is highly collaborative. Among the groups she engages with is the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS): https://pecs-science.org/.

Topics of the interview include:

The use of "critical realist" philosophy as a basis for engaged research.

The challenge of "pracademics": practical and ethical demands of conducting transdisciplinary research with local partners.

Empirical analysis of "patchy" watershed-scale governance among heterogeneous actor groups.

Jessica's personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/jesscockburn/home

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jess_cockburn

Jessica's paper that Michael mentioned:

Cockburn, Jessica, Georgina Cundill, Sheona Shackleton, Mathieu Rouget, Marijn Zwinkels, Susanna (ancia) Cornelius, Liz Metcalfe, and Dieter van den Broeck. 2019. “Collaborative Stewardship in Multifunctional Landscapes: Toward Relational, Pluralistic Approaches.” Ecology and Society 24 (4). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11085-240432.

Tiny book title: A story of hope from a patchy place.

036: A social anthropological view on conservation and interdisciplinarity with Liana Chua

Michael and Stefan interview Liana Chua.

Liana is a social anthropologist at Brunel University London with long-term ethnographic interests in Borneo, ethnic politics, development, more-than-human landscapes, visuality, and materiality. Her current research revolves around the social, political, aesthetic, and affective dimensions of the global nexus of orangutan conservation.

Liana received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, her MPhil in Social Anthropological Analysis from the University of Cambridge, and her BA in Modern History from the University of Oxford.

Topics include:

• How social anthropology contributes to conservation research and practice
• The out-group homogeneity effect
• Boundary objects and being open to new ideas
• Tips for effective collaborative research
• The risk of interdisciplinarity

We frequently reference a recent paper led by Liana, published in the journal People and Nature, titled “Conservation and the social sciences: Beyond critique and co-optation. A case study from orangutan conservation”. 

Link to paper Liana’s recent paper in the journal People and Nature:

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10072

 

Liana’s university page:

https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/liana-chua

Liana’s Twitter:

https://twitter.com/liana_chua?lang=en

 

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035: Bacteria, public goods, and Interdisciplinarity with Carey Nadell

In this episode, Michael interviews a colleague of his from Dartmouth College, Carey Nadell. Carey is a professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth, and he studies the the evolution of cooperation and conflict among bacteria in the context of their complex communities. His research program shares the same fundamental framing as many commons scholars studying how communities of resource users can avoid the tragedy of the commons. Carey and Michael discuss the relationship between their own research programs based on this shared framing.

Both Michael and Carey are members of Dartmouth's interdisciplinary PhD program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society (EEES), which they also discuss. 

Carey's website: http://nadell-lab.org/

034: Reflexivity and the digitalization of academia with Klara Winkler

In this episode, Stefan interviews Klara Winkler. Klara is a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University in Canada, where she is also the Deputy Science Director of the ResNet project, which aims to “To transform Canada's capacity to monitor, model, and manage its working landscapes and all the ecosystem services they provide for long-term shared health, prosperity and resilience for all Canadians.”

Klara is from Germany, where she earned her PhD from the University of Oldenburg. Her thesis was titled “Once more with feelings: Harnessing human-nature relationships for the governance of social-ecological systems”. She received a MSc from Lund University in Sweden, with a thesis titled, “More than wine: cultural ecosystem services in vineyard landscapes”.

In the podcast we discuss:

• The challenges and opportunities of further digitizing academia
• Reflexivity in research practice, including our own emissions
• The challenges of being far away from our objects of study
• Skype a Scientist initiative

Klara’s lab page

http://bennettlab.weebly.com/klara.html

 

ResNet project page

https://www.nsercresnet.ca/index.html

 

https://www.aaas.org/programs/center-public-engagement-science-and-technology/reflections/suddenly-find-yourself-needing

 

https://www.skypeascientist.com/

 

Klara’s Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6wI_zcIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

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033: Reflections on COVID19 from a sustainability science perspective with Henrik von Wehrden

In this episode, Stefan interviews Henrik von Wehrden.

Henrik is the Dean of the Faculty of Sustainability at Leuphana University in Germany, where he also holds a professorship in quantitative methods in sustainability science.

Henrik was one of the first guests on the podcast, and you can hear our previous interview in episode 003, which gives a more general overview of his background and work.

In this episode we discuss:

• Henrik’s understanding of the COVID19 data, and how he used existing models to foresee its spread
• The usefulness of using mixed methods to understand the data
• The role of sustainability science
• How COVID19 may change academia
• What we can learn from this global challenge

 

Henrik’s university page

https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/institute-of-ecology/team/henrik-von-wehrden.html

 

Henrik’s lab page

https://henrikvonwehrden.leuphana.de/

 

Henrik's Google Scholar:

https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=RmW1avAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

 

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032: Food systems, applied research, and open science with Meredith Niles

In this episode Michael is joined by Courtney Hammond Wagner to interview Meredith Niles. They spoke about Meredith's past life as a policy professional, her transition to the world of academia, her applied work on food systems and use of psychological theory. Also, Michael and Meredith shared their passion for open science resources!

Meredith's website: www.meredithtniles.com

Resources on open science:

Sherpa Romeo: http://sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php

SPARC: https://sparcopen.org/

 

Insight #12: Jeremy Caradonna on the history of sustainability thinking

This insight clip is taken from episode 004 of the podcast with Jeremy Caradonna.

Jeremy holds a PhD in the history of scientific, environmental, and political thought, and teaches Environmental Studies and Human Dimensions of Climate Change at the University of Victoria. He is also the author of the book ‘Sustainability: A history’, published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

In the podcast we discuss: 

• Indigenous versus modern notions of sustainable societies
• The rise of sustainability thinking in Europe
• Early links between environmental degradation and human wellbeing
• The link between economic thought and sustainability

Jeremy's website

https://www.jeremycaradonna.com/

 

Link to Jeremy's book 'Sustainability: A history'

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sustainability-9780199372409?cc=de&lang=en&

 

Cool video summary of the book 'Sustainability: A history'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hho1h7OR6l8

 

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031: Food as a commons and changing food narratives in a post-COVID19 world with Jose Luis Vivero-Pol

Michael Cox and Stefan Partelow interview Jose Luis Vivero-Pol.

Jose Luis is an engaged scholar associated with the Universities of Louvain, Cordoba, Edinburgh and the Spanish Right to Food Observatory. His research interests include food valuations (rights, commodity, public good, commons) and food systems in transition. In particular, how normative food narratives shape food policies, and collective arrangements in customary and contemporary food commons.

In the podcast we discuss the following topics:

• Current food narratives and policy implications
• The “food as a commons” framework
• Different schools of thought on commons
• Difference between water and food being framed as commons
• Influence of COVID19 on food systems
• What Ostrom’s school of thought can learn from reframing food as a commons
• Why interdisciplinarity is necessary but difficult to exercise

 

Jose’s Twitter

https://twitter.com/JoseLViveroPol?s=20

 

Jose’s articles, books and presentation referenced in the podcast:

https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Food-as-a-Commons/Vivero-Pol-Ferrando-Schutter-Mattei/p/book/9781138062627

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/442

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2947219

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332244503_Food_as_a_new_old_commons

https://peoplefoodandnature.org/blog/de-commodifying-food-the-last-frontier-in-the-civic-claim-of-the-commons/ 

https://biogov.uclouvain.be/staff/vivero/art_The%20idea%20of%20food%20as%20commons%20or%20commodity%20in%20academia.pdf

https://www.slideshare.net/joseluisviveropol/our-food-as-a-commons-reframing-the-food-narrative-for-a-fair-sustainable-transition 

 

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Insight #11: Mark Lubell on the ecology of games and polycentricity

This insight clip is taken from Michael Cox’s interview with Mark Lubell in episode 023 of the podcast. In the clip, Mark talks about the ecology of games theory and its link to the history of research on polycentric governance.

Mark is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis, where he is also the Director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior.

https://environmentalpolicy.ucdavis.edu/

https://environmentalpolicy.ucdavis.edu/people/lubell

Mark’s research focuses on human behavior and the role of governance institutions in solving collective action problems and facilitating cooperation. The collective action problems associated with environmental policy provide a laboratory for his research. Current projects include watershed management, environmental activism, agricultural best management practices, and institutional change in local governments. He also dabbles in experimental economics and simulation techniques to further explore collective action theory.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MQiMFHIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

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Insight #10: Krister Andersson on reframing deforestation

This Insight clip is taken from episode 011 of the podcast with Krister Andersson.

Krister Andersson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research focuses primarily on governmental reforms to address social and environmental problems in developing countries. He examines the politics of environmental governance and is interested in local institutional arrangements and the role they play in explaining policy outcomes.

Krister’s Google Scholar page

https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=PJ2c5_kAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao

University webpage

https://www.colorado.edu/polisci/people/faculty/krister-andersson

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