On June 24, 2020, SJRC Founding Director Jenny Reardon joined Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (Simon Fraser University’s Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media in the School of Communication) for a conversation on Science & Justice, and to explore our intersecting work on democracy, justice, information, and truth.
As Reardon’s recently written in relation in “V is for Veracity” about Covid-19: An “us” versus “them” mindset engendered by the metaphor of war focuses our attention on viruses, vaccines, and victory. It leads us to believe that there is a discrete enemy out there—a virus—that we must defeat. Yet, as we focus on this so-called frontline, we risk missing the deeper, more systemic problems. All our efforts, staying home and holding the frontline, may only lead us into the next battle, if we do not attend now to the unraveling of relations that sustain trustworthy truths—the veracity required to live collectively.
Refer also to the SSRC article, “V is for veracity.”
The conversation was recorded and will be linked here once available.
Jenny Reardon is a Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research draws into focus questions about identity, justice and democracy that are often silently embedded in scientific ideas and practices, particularly in modern genomic research. Her training spans molecular biology, the history of biology, science studies, feminist and critical race studies, and the sociology of science, technology and medicine. She is the author of Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics (Princeton University Press, 2005) and The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, Knowledge After the Genome (Chicago University Press, Fall 2017). She has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from, among others, the National Science Foundation, the Max Planck Institute, the Humboldt Foundation, the London School of Economics, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and the United States Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology.