The Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) aims to produce and support original research. Our community events and affiliated faculty-initiated research projects inform a range of interdisciplinary research topics at the intersection of science and justice. Find out more information on our fundraising efforts to further support Center researchers and projects as highlighted below. The Center’s completed projects are archived.
Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network (CIHSN)
Colonialism is the fundamental determinant of health and life chances for Indigenous peoples around the world (Greenwood et al., 2022). Institutions, like healthcare systems, are shaped by colonialism (McCallum and Perry 2018). In Canada and the United States, Indigenous health research draws on deficit-based (Kovach 2014; Million 2013) and damage-centered (Tuck 2009) frameworks that pathologize Indigenous peoples, not colonial conditions that shape health outcomes. Such research generates non-Indigenous experts’ narratives about Indigenous peoples that prop up and legitimize anti-Indigenous ideas and practices in health policy and healthcare delivery. To date, scholars largely have not analyzed these critical elements of anti-Indigenous racism and health inequity (Kolopenuk, 2020). They need to.
The leadership teams of the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society Research and Training Program (Indigenous STS) at the University of Alberta (UofA) and the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) propose to address increasing calls to support Indigenous peoples’ right to govern health research by developing the Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network (CIHSN). CIHSN will support the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s aligned goal to decolonize health systems. In line with leading Indigenous Studies scholars (and in the University of Alberta Indigenous Strategic Plan), we define decolonization as the restoration of Indigenous land, life, and relations appropriated or disrupted by colonialism. While no single project can undo the massive upheavals of colonialism, our project uses decolonial thinking and practice to guide us in our work to build and restore Indigenous expertise and leadership in, and governance of, health research. For more information on this cluster, visit the project website and contact Jenny Reardon, James Doucet-Battle, and Colleen Stone.
Leadership in the Equitable and Ethical Design (LEED) of STEM Research
Increasingly public and private funders recognize the critical importance of incorporating ethical and societal analysis into the design of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) research. Despite this growing demand, there is little guidance on best practices for fostering this integration or for evaluating its effects. This initiative—a national and international collaboration—aims to clarify, review, and revitalize the roles and value of engaging bioethicists and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts in STEM research. It proceeds in three phases: background research; drafting of LEED Principles and Practices; and International Discussion and Write-Up of LEED Principles and Practices. If you are interested in getting involved, being added to the listserve to receive project updates, or are interested in making a donation to support the project, please send an email to leed@ucsc.edu. Learn more.
Just Biomedicine
Just Biomedicine is a UC Santa Cruz-based research collective that examines the meeting of biomedicine, biotechnology, and big data along the Third Street corridor in the Mission-Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. Many hope that this convergence will democratize access to health information and produce revolutionary new medical treatments that new companies will make available to the public through market mechanisms. Yet, as in other domains, living with technoscientific transformations over time reveals how they produce new inequalities and injustices: new challenges to democratic governance; new surveillance regimes; and new forms of social stratification. Learn more.
The SNU in the World Program: Innovation, Science and Justice at UC Santa Cruz
The SNU in the World Program, administered by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at Seoul National University (https://oia.snu.ac.kr/snu-world-program-swp) is a university-led and government-funded initiative to train undergraduate students to be globally engaged scholars and leaders. The SNU in the World Program with the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) at UC Santa Cruz is coordinated through the Science & Justice Research Center’s Visiting Scholar Program with Doogab Yi, Associate Professor of Science Studies at Seoul National University (https://bit.ly/2P9b7Wi). The SNU in the World Program at UC Santa Cruz is one of five other programs selected for funding and focuses on Innovation, Science and Justice. Other SNU Programs include visits to Washington DC (public policy), Japan (sustainable development), and Australia (climate crisis). If you would like to take part in or contribute to this partnership, email Jenny Reardon and Colleen Stone. Learn more.
Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society Studies Pathways Project
Focusing on sociology and science, technology, and society studies, the Pathways Project, engages transdisciplinary thought and collaboration, and the critical skills needed for building our capacities to address problems of our time that span disciplines and areas of practice. The broader mission of the Pathways Project seeks to engage undergraduate students in robust intellectual linkages between the social sciences, African Diaspora Studies, history, politics, and genomic science to better understand the question of diversity. For more information, contact James Doucet-Battle.
Theorizing Race After Race
In the post-WWII, post-fascist, post-nationalist moment, a dominant story developed both within and outside the academy that ‘race’ had no meaning or value for understanding human biology. Despite the so-called end of ‘race’ over the last several decades, scholars continued to track the subtle manner in which racial thinking continued under the cover of culture, religion, population and ethnicity. Today, however we see an overt return to race, a return facilitated and mediated by novel forms of science and technology: genomics; machine learning; algorithmically driven media platforms. Learn more.