Universities and other research institutions have been the target of demonstrations, petitions, and occupations in recent years. Citizens, students, and staff alike have called for revision of existing research connections with the carbon industry, with surveillance and AI companies, with warring countries like Russia and Israel and so on. The contents of academic programs have also been scrutinized from this same critical perspective, raising questions about how their contents should be determined and who should be involved. Such concerns about science and academia’s complicity in or resistance against ethically undesirable engagements are becoming louder and more prevalent across the globe.
These developments show a decisive rift from the traditional view of academia and science harboring in their ivory tower. This position seemed more in line with Merton’s influential 1942 analysis of the ‘ethos of science’, it being determined by its universalism, the common ownership of its goods, its organized skepticism and its disinterestedness (Merton 1942). That position had already lost much of its appeal and persuasiveness, due to increasing awareness of the interdependencies between science and societal domains like the military, industry, government, politics and so on. In addition, science’s role in war, in oppression and surveillance, in climate change and other crises has extensively been documented.
In parallel to this increasing awareness of science’s societal position and its ‘dirty hands’, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (ID/TD) science have become ever more prominent in addressing these crises and other real-world problems. Indeed, their apparent greater societal relevance appears to be a main reason for the attractiveness of these new modes of science (cf. (National Academy of Sciences 2005). This relevance is partly due to the fact that ID/TD projects explicitly foster not only scientific pluralism but also require the integration of social and societal actors. As such, they bolster the integration of the interests, norms and values these actors bring. Yet it remains to be seen whether doing ID/TD projects are by their very nature better placed to respond to the calls against complicity and for resistance, as some suggest.
This panel addresses these issues by elaborating how ID/TD research and education navigate the spectrum between complicity and resistance. Does the explicit integration of societal interests and moral norms and values protect against the complicity in the production of crises or injustices? If not, how could the resistance against these be enhanced in ID/TD projects? Is the integration not often being misunderstood as a form of synthesis or consensus such that it undermines necessary critique? Does the real-world nature of ID/TD projects lead in some cases to losing the bigger -moral- picture of their contribution to crises and injustices? Who should be accepted as stakeholders in such projects, including future generations or natural entities like rivers or species? In other words, what angles and instruments are available to ensure that ID/TD projects don’t ignore their responsibility in navigating explicitly between complicity and resistance?
This interactive workshop aims to explore these questions, leading to an articulation of how ID/TD projects can and should explicitly position themselves on the spectrum between complicity and resistance. What questions should be raised when; what actors and stakeholders should be included; what options for actions are available? The workshop will start with brief presentations by the panelists, who will all present on the following elements:
1. reference to a particular perspective or case (study) from their ID/TD expertise, illustrating their account of this spectrum between Complicity and Resistance
2. indicate how their account addresses particular features of ID/TD research that allows certain decisions or actions regarding this Complicity-Resistance spectrum
3. close with one recommendation for ID/TD projects generally to address and navigate this Complicity-Resistance spectrum.
A plenary and moderated conversation will explore how we can turn the collected positions on the Complicity-Resistance spectrum into an instrument that helps ID/TD researchers to reflect on and articulate their own position.
Workshop presenters are:
- Dr. Machiel Keestra (University of Amsterdam; m.keestra@uva.nl ; https://www.uva.nl/profiel/k/e/m.keestra/m.keestra.html - convener)
- Prof.dr. Steve Fiore (University of Central Florida; sfiore@ucf.edu ; https://csl.ist.ucf.edu/People )
- Dr. Paul Hirsch (SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry; pahirsch@esf.edu ; https://www.esf.edu/faculty/hirsch/index.php )
- Prof.dr. Jan Schmidt (Hochschule Darmstadt; jan.schmidt@h-da.de ; https://wipsy.h-da.de/ueber-uns/lehrende/jan-schmidt )
- Prof.dr. Ulli Vilsmaier (Responsive research; vilsmaier@responsiveresearch.org ; https://responsiveresearch.org/team-2/#ulli-vilsmaier )
Merton, R. K. (1942). ´The normative structure of science [1942]. The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations. R. K. Merton. Chicago, Chicago University Press: 267-.
National Academy of Sciences, E. a. M. N. (2005). Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research. Washington, DC, Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research: 332.
