Author Archives: Colleen Stone

May 29, 2024 (POSTPONED) | Book Celebration The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity

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Wednesday, May 29, 2024 – POSTPONED

Join Science & Justice scholars together with the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES) and The Black Geographies Lab, in Rachel Carson College Red Room, to celebrate the The Black Geographic (Duke University Press, 2023).

About The Black Geographic

The Black Geographic
Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Duke University Press, 2023)

Co-edited by S&J affiliate Camilla Hawthorne (Sociology, CRES), contributors to The Black Geographic explore the theoretical innovations of Black Geographies scholarship and how it approaches Blackness as historically and spatially situated. In studies that span from Oakland to the Alabama Black Belt to Senegal to Brazil, the contributors draw on ethnography, archival records, digital humanities, literary criticism, and art to show how understanding the spatial dimensions of Black life contributes to a broader understanding of race and space. They examine key sites of inquiry: Black spatial imaginaries, resistance to racial violence, the geographies of racial capitalism, and struggles over urban space. Throughout, the contributors demonstrate that Blackness is itself a situating and place-making force, even as it is shaped by spatial processes and diasporic routes. Whether discussing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century abolitionist print records or migration and surveillance in Niger, this volume demonstrates that Black Geographies is a mode of analyzing Blackness that fundamentally challenges the very foundations of the field of geography and its historical entwinement with colonialism, enslavement, and imperialism. In short, it marks a new step in the evolution of the field.

The Black Geographic  is available at Duke University Press.

Contributors. Anna Livia Brand, C.N.E. Corbin, Lindsey Dillon, Chiyuma Elliott, Ampson Hagan, Camilla Hawthorne, Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta, Jovan Scott Lewis, Judith Madera, Jordanna Matlon, Solange Muñoz, Diana Negrín, Danielle Purifoy, Sharita Towne

October 21, 2024 | Book Celebrations: Toxic City & A People’s History of SFO

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Monday, October 21, 2024

3:00-5:00 PM

Humanities 1-210

Join the Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies to celebrate the release of two important new books by UCSC faculty exploring power, historical development, and environmental justice in the Bay Area: Lindsey Dillon’s Toxic City and Eric Porter’s A People’s History of SFO (both published by University of California Press). The authors will be in conversation with graduate students from the departments of History and Sociology.

A limited number of both books are available for graduate students – please contact kgalinde@ucsc.edu to receive a copy. Books are available for sale via the UC Press website for 30% off using the code UCPSAVE30.

About the Authors and Books

Book Cover for Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024).

Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco explores the impact of green gentrification in Bayview-Hunters Point, a historically Black neighborhood in San Francisco. Lindsey examines how revitalization efforts often threaten to displace long-time residents who have fought for toxic cleanup and urban redevelopment as a means of reparative justice. She links these struggles to broader issues of environmental racism and the legacy of slavery, arguing for a vision of environmental justice within the context of reparations. Lindsey Dillon is author of Toxic City and a critical human geographer and Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz.

 

 

 

A People’s History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport (University of California Press, 2024).A People’s History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport examines the history of San Francisco International Airport to uncover a rich narrative of development and power in the Bay Area from the eighteenth century to today. Eric highlights SFO’s pivotal role in the region’s evolution as a hub of commerce, innovation, and influence. By examining the airport’s colonial roots and its impact on trade, social dynamics, and environmental change, Porter reveals how individual actions intersect with larger systems of power. The book concludes by confronting the climate crisis and the challenges it poses to SFO and the surrounding community. Eric Porter is Professor of History and History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz, where he also holds appointments in the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Music Departments. His research and teaching interests include Black cultural and intellectual history, US urban and cultural history, and jazz and improvisation studies. Porter is author of A People’s History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport (University of California Press, 2024).

 

Hosted by the Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies (CUES).

Co-Sponsored by the departments of History of Consciousness and Sociology, the Division of Social Sciences, the Institute for Social Transformation, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Book cover for The Problem with Solutions Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2024)

Book release! The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2024)

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About the Book

A concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises.

Book cover for The Problem with Solutions Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2024)

The Problem with Solutions Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2024)

Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today’s myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.

The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector’s ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.

The book is available at: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-problem-with-solutions/epub-pdf

More information can be found in this campus news article: https://news.ucsc.edu/2024/09/guthman-problem-with-solutions.html

About the Author

Julie Guthman is a geographer and Distinguished Professor in Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz. Her previous books include Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry.

Book cover for Toxic City Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024)

Book release! Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024)

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About the Book

Book cover for Toxic City Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024)

Toxic City Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024)

Toxic City presents a novel critique of postindustrial green gentrification through a study of Bayview-Hunters Point, a historically Black neighborhood in San Francisco. As cities across the United States clean up and transform contaminated waterfronts and abandoned factories into inviting spaces of urban nature and green living, working-class residents—who previously lived with the effects of state abandonment, corporate divestment, and industrial pollution—are threatened with displacement at the very moment these neighborhoods are cleaned, greened, and revitalized. Lindsey Dillon details how residents of Bayview-Hunters Point have fought for years for toxic cleanup and urban redevelopment to be a reparative process and how their efforts are linked to long-standing struggles for Black community control and self-determination. She argues that environmental racism is part of a long history of harm linked to slavery and its afterlives and concludes that environmental justice can be conceived within a larger project of reparations.

More information can be found at: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/toxic-city/paper

About the Author

Lindsey Dillon is author of Toxic City and a critical human geographer and Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz.

Call for Participation

Summer 2024 Graduate Student Researcher Opportunity (PAID)

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Together with The University of Alberta, Canada, the Science & Justice Research Center is now accepting applications for a Graduate Student Researcher.

This position supports The Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. More information about The CIHSN project can be found on the project webpage.

In consultation with PIs Jenny Reardon and James Doucet-Battle (Sociology), and Colleen Stone (Program Manager) at the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) and PIs Jessica Kolopenuk (Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, UofA) and Kim TallBear (Native Studies, UofA), one UC graduate student researcher will be offered a GSRship (a total of $5000) in Summer 2024 with the possibility of extension to a 50% GSRship in Fall 2024 (or split 25% in Fall 2024 and 25% in Winter 2025).

The graduate student researcher will: 1) assist in developing and organizing a weeklong visit to the University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada including a Symposium; 2) help implement activities during the visit; 3) assist in developing a literature review on critical Indigenous health research, sovereignty, and governance; 4) and work with the team to produce a final end-of visit report on activities including plans of future in-person gatherings.

The Graduate Student Researcher Must:

  • Be currently enrolled as a graduate student in the UC System (any campus, any discipline); available to accept an appointment at UC Santa Cruz.
  • Knowledge of and experience in working with tribal communities.
  • Be interested in strengthening partnerships with the University of Alberta, Edmonton and UC Santa Cruz, and developing a network for critical Indigenous health studies.
  • Be available to be in Edmonton for the in-person visit (August 19-23, 2024).

The Graduate Student Researcher Will Receive:

  • A fellowship with the SJRC and listed on the Project’s webpage.
  • An initial GSRship for Summer 2024. Date range, percent, and step to be confirmed upon acceptance of offer.
  • Appropriate funding to cover travel and lodging expenses associated with Symposium#1 in Edmonton.

To Apply:

By Monday, May 28 at 12 Noon, email (scijust@ucsc.edu) expressing interest, letting us know and sending the following:

  1. Your name, home campus and department, academic faculty advisor(s).
  2. Your resume/CV.
  3. Why you are interested in the project and how your learning/research/career goals would benefit from the fellowship.
  4. Your experiences with the project topic, if any.

SNU In the World Program 2024 Rapporteur Report

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SNU In the World Program 2024 Rapporteur Report

Innovation, Science & Justice

University of California, Santa Cruz

January 23, 2024 – February 03, 2024

The Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC) hosted its second year of the SNU in the World Program, with 29 visiting scholars (including Professor Doogab Yi, 2 graduate students, and 26 undergraduates) from Seoul National University (SNU). During their two-week stay, scholars engaged with various projects conducted at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) by SJRC affiliates. The SNU in the World Program, administered by the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at SNU, is a university-led and government-funded initiative to train South Korean undergraduate students to be globally engaged scholars and leaders. The SNU in the World Program at UCSC is one of five other programs selected for funding and focuses on Innovation, Science and Justice. Other SNU Programs included visits to Washington DC (public policy), Japan (sustainable development), and Australia (climate crisis).

The program was once again facilitated by Doogab Yi, Associate Professor of Science Studies at Seoul National University, who brought together a diverse group of students from fields including the biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, industrial design, pharmacy, dentistry, sociology, anthropology, business administration, and fine arts. Over the two-week program students participated in an in-depth series of lectures, workshops, a film screening and live performance, and field trips to the surrounding Bay Area museums, cultural centers, and sites of innovation such as Google and an AI enabled lab at Stanford University Hospital. Activities focused on exploring cutting-edge issues including stem cell innovation in organoid intelligence, data and information justice, engineering and AI ethics, health equity, land and site-based practices, and ecological reparations.

Crown College Provost Manel Camps provided the students with an introduction to initiatives in innovation at UC Santa Cruz.  These included the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED), which promotes the development, research, and teaching of innovation and entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz, the Innovation and Business Engagement Hub, and with the Student Creativity Empowerment and Entrepreneurship association (SCEE). SJRC co-directors Jenny Reardon and James Doucet-Battle then took the lead framing the key learning outcomes of the visit centering on pressing topics of bioethics, health disparities, and equitable research. Previous and current projects affiliated with SJRC such as the the Leadership in Ethical & Equitable Design (LEED) of STEM Research Project and the University of California – Historically Black Colleges and Universities (UC-HBCU) Initiative provided insights into the Center’s efforts to center issues of equity and justice in science and engineering. 

This year’s SNU in the World program provided an opportunity to bring together a diverse community of researchers, scholars, artists, and policy makers who work in the domain of Science and Justice at UCSC and in the broader Bay Area. On their first day, they had a chance to be in conversation with Tiffany Wise-West, the Sustainability and Climate Action Manager for The City of Santa Cruz and a founding graduate fellow of the Science & Justice Training Program. In this conversation they learned about innovative relationships, environmental justice and the city.

Over dinner that first evening, they met with undergraduate student fellows in the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change. The Everett Program develops young leaders who use the technical, educational, and research resources of the university to work directly with communities, empowering people to develop practical solutions to persistent problems.

Over the following days, students had a chance to engage with a variety of areas and topics. In a session with the UCSC IBSC Stem Cell Journal Club, the visitors engaged in rich conversation surrounding bioethical questions raised by the innovative biotechnological research in organoid intelligence. UCSC Professor of History Ben Breene and Roya Pakzad, Founder and Director of Taraaz, a non-profit organization working at the intersection of technology and human rights, raised the question of ethical dilemmas in engineering from a global historical perspective, while two faculty members in the History of Consciousness department, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Dimitris Papadopoulos, approached the question of ecological justice from the framework of community technoscience. Leilani Gilpin and Carolina Flores, Assistant Professors in Computer Science and Engineering and Philosophy respectively, presented their collaborative work on the topic of justice in data science. Chessa Adsit-Morris and James Karabin, graduate researchers in SJRC’s Leadership in the Ethical and Equitable Design (LEED) Initiative, also focused on addressing issues of equity at intellectual and institutional levels in science and engineering.

This year, a series of performances, exhibitions, and film screenings complemented core themes of the lectures. A live performance of Strata: A Performance of Topography, an improvisational documentary meditating on land-based histories, shared thematic resonances with Connie Zheng and Kevin Corcoran’s lecture on land and site-based artistic research practices. Another highlight of the artistic contributions of the program was a screening of Richland, the 2023 documentary film by filmmaker Irene Lusztig centering on the residents and nuclear site workers of Hanford, a manufacturing company of weapons-grade plutonium for the Manhattan Project in the town Richland, Washington. The collective viewing of the film was effective in bringing about cross-cultural exchange of significant social, political, and national differences about world historical events such as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The visitors’ responses to the film showed how the technology of nuclear bombs signifying American imperialism could also be framed as an anti-colonial technology in Korea. Both perspectives raise difficult questions about the role of normalized ideologies in justifying immense violence. 

Outside of UCSC, the group participated in several field trips throughout the local Bay Area. They were welcomed to the UC San Francisco Mission Bay Campus by Julie Harris-Wai, an Associate Professor at UCSF’s Institute for Health and Aging in the School of Nursing. Visitors embarked on a walking tour of Third Street led by Reardon and researcher Dennis Browe as part of SJRC’s Just Biomedicine project. Just Biomedicine is a research collective that critically examines the meeting of biomedicine, biotechnology, and big data along the Third Street corridor in the Mission-Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The walking tour was designed to allow participants to think critically about who and what research infrastructures (such as buildings) are for when confronted by accessibility, surveillance, and social stratification issues in the urban landscape. Visitors also had ample free time to explore the city by attending de Young Museum, SF MOMA, and biking the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito before visiting Paul Tang’s AI enabled Lab at Stanford Hospital and touring UC Berkeley. 

After traveling back to Santa Cruz, SNU students worked in groups to synthesize their lessons throughout the two-week program into conference-style presentations. During the project development phase, groups discussed and debated a number of issues. At the end of the two-week program, teams presented their final research projects covering topics including: the role of artificial intelligence in mental health sciences; access to medical care and the power of walking ethnographies. All of these projects attempted to apply and analyze practical approaches to addressing issues of equity and justice in the realms of science and technology.

To take part in or contribute to this partnership for the next visit in late January 2025, please contact Jenny Reardon (reardon1@ucsc.edu) and Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu).

Tuesday, May 21 (POSTPONED )| Informational Meeting: Developing a Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 (POSTPONED)

Are you interested in centering support for Indigenous peoples’ right to govern health research? The UCSC American Indian Resource Center and the Science & Justice Research Center invite you to attend an Informational Meeting!

ABOUT CIHSN

Supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), 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) are working to address increasing calls to support Indigenous peoples’ right to govern health research by developing the Critical Indigenous Health Studies Network (CIHSN). CIHSN supports the RWJF’s aligned goal to decolonize health systems. In line with leading Indigenous Studies scholars (and in the University of Alberta Indigenous Strategic Plan), CIHSN defines 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 build and restore Indigenous expertise and leadership in, and governance of, health research.

How to Get Involved in CIHSN

The leadership teams at UofA Indigenous STS and UCSC SJRC are recruiting a graduate student who is interested in strengthening partnerships with the University of Alberta, Edmonton and UCSC, and developing a network for critical Indigenous health studies. Around the theme of problems of the extraction of power, not theorizing colonial violence, topics include but are not limited to: medical genomics, ecological health perspectives (fire, water, food), and Indigenous health systems (botanical knowledge, sport/culture).

The graduate student researcher will: 1) assist in developing and organizing a weeklong visit to the University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada including a Symposium; 2) help implement activities during the visit; 3) assist in developing a literature review on critical Indigenous health research, sovereignty, and governance; 4) and work with the team to produce a final end-of visit report on activities including plans of future in-person gatherings.

Team meetings are conducted remotely. Over the course of the three year grant, research teams will come together in-person at both UofA and UCSC. Students participating in Summer 2024 should be available to be in-person in Edmonton, Canada from August 19-23, 2024. Students participating in Fall 2024 and Winter 2025 should be available to be in-person in Santa Clara, California from February 24-28, 2025. Travel and lodging expenses will be covered.

To apply: review the Call for Graduate Student Researcher.

For more information: visit the project website at https://indigenoussts.com/cihsn/. 

For questions, contact scijust@ucsc.edu.

CIHSN LEADERSHIP

Jessica Kolopenuk (Cree, Peguis First Nation) is an Assistant Professor and Alberta Health Services Research Chair in Indigenous Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society in the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta.

James Doucet-Battle is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and Co-Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

Jenny Reardon is Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and Co-Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

May 15, 2024 (POSTPONED) | Walking in the Ecotone with Jim Clifford

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Wednesday, May 15, 2024 – POSTPONED

A not to miss opportunity to explore of the UC Santa Cruz Campus, on and off the footpaths with Jim Clifford! We ‘ll wander among the trees, down in the ravines, out in the meadows. Pooling our different knowledges of environmental, social, cultural, technological and architectural history, we will try to disentangle the overlapping layers that constitute a unique environment. Walking in the Ecotone with Jim Clifford will start in front of Humanities 1 at 2.30pm.
 
Jim Clifford is Emeritus Professor in the History of Consciousness Department . Since his retirement he has photographed the campus, co-curated an exhibition about its history https://exhibits.library.ucsc.edu/exhibits/show/an-uncommon-place and published a book of Images and texts, In the Ecotone , that evokes the site’s “poetics of space,” its planning/design history, and its utopian potential (in pdf here: https://people.ucsc.edu/~jcliff/books.html)
Co-sponsored by Geoecologies and Technoscience Conversations, History of Consciousness and the Science and Justice Research Center

May 1, 2024 (cancelled) | TechnoScience Improv

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Wednesday, May 01, 2024 – CANCELLED DUE to the STRIKE.

12:15-2:00 PM

Humanities 1, Room 210

Join SJRC scholars in Humanities 1-210 for an improv discussion!

Co-sponsored by History of Consciousness: GeoEcologies + TechnoScience Conversations, Global and Community Health, and the Science & Justice Research Center

This two-hour roundtable improv (12.15-2.00pm) brings together ten UCSC scholars working on social, historical, and cultural studies of science, technology and medicine. The event will be structured around eight open, improvised conversations. Rather than structured around formal talks, each conversation will start with a question from a different panelist exploring emerging practices, speculative transformations, and critical imaginings of technoscience, health and ecology. With: Dimitris Papadopoulos (convener), Karen Barad, James Doucet-Battle, Kat Gutierrez, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Jenny Reardon, Warren Sack, Kriti Sharma, Matt Sparke, Zac Zimmer

Karen Barad is Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness.

James Doucet-Battle  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Co-Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

Kat Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor in the History Department.

Dimitris Papadopoulos is Professor of History of Consciousness in the Department of History of Consciousness.

Maria Puig de la Bellacasa is Professor of History of Consciousness in the Department of History of Consciousness.

Jenny Reardon is a Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

Warren Sack is Professor of the Software Arts in the Film + Digital Media Department.

Kriti Sharma is an Assistant Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.

Matt Sparke is Professor of Politics in the Politics Department and Co-Director of Global and Community Health.

Zac Zimmer is an Associate Professor of Literature in the Literature Department.