Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- Notes on Editors and Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Part I: Introduction -- 1: Introducing Critical Physical Geography -- Barriers to Interdisciplinary1 Research -- Doing CPG Research: Structure and Methods -- Epistemology -- Relations to Cognate Fields -- Structure of this Handbook -- Conclusion -- References -- 2: Towards a Genealogy of Critical Physical Geography -- Introduction -- Early Academic Geography: From Integration to Schism -- Man (Sic) as a 'Unit Process' -- Systems and Integration -- Physical Geography and Engagements with Philosophy -- A Genealogy of a More Critical Physical Geography -- Towards a More Physical Critical Human Geography -- Conclusions -- References -- 3: In Defense of Crappy Landscapes (Core Tenet #1) -- Introduction -- The Age of Us -- Disturbance -- Crappy Landscapes -- Critical Theory and Crappy Landscapes: From Science to Intervention -- Conclusion -- References -- 4: A Framework for Understanding the Politics of Science (Core Tenet #2) -- Introduction -- Science, Facts, and Big-P Politics -- Scientific Choices and Their Consequences: A Small-p Politics of Science -- Theory -- Methodology and Data Availability -- Application-Driven Environmental Science: Why and for Whom? -- Institutions: Structuring Our Scientific Choices -- Conclusion -- References -- 5: The Impacts of Doing Environmental Research (Core Tenet #3) -- Introduction -- Fieldwork Impacts on Biophysical Environments -- Fieldwork Impacts on Social Relations -- Fieldwork Impacts on Socioecological Imaginaries -- The Impacts of Our Research Results -- Research in the Anthropocene -- Discussion and Future Directions -- References -- Part II: CPG in Practice -- 6: The Trouble with Savanna and Other Environmental Categories, Especially in Africa -- Geographic Philosophy and Society.

"Risk Research: Practices, Politics and Ethics offers a collection of essays, written by a wide variety of international researchers in risk research, about what it means to do risk research, and about how - and with what effects - risk research is practiced, articulated and exploited. This approach is based upon the core assumption that: to make a difference in the study of risk, we must move beyond what we usually do, challenging the core assumptions, scientific, economic and social, about how we study, frame, exploit and govern risk. Hence, through a series of essays, the book aims to challenge the current ways in which risk-problems are approached and presented, both conceptually by academics and through the framings that are encoded in the technologies and socio-political and institutional practices used to manage risk."--

It has been convincingly argued that computer simulation modeling differs from traditional science. If we understand simulation modeling as a new way of doing science, the manner in which scientists learn about the world through models must also be considered differently. This article examines how researchers learn about environmental processes through computer simulation modeling. Suggesting a conceptual framework anchored in a performative philosophical approach, we examine two modeling projects undertaken by research teams in England, both aiming to inform flood risk management. One of the modeling teams operated in the research wing of a consultancy firm, the other were university scientists taking part in an interdisciplinary project experimenting with public engagement. We found that in the first context the use of standardized software was critical to the process of improvisation, the obstacles emerging in the process concerned data and were resolved through exploiting affordances for generating, organizing, and combining scientific information in new ways. In the second context, an environmental competency group, obstacles were related to the computer program and affordances emerged in the combination of experience-based knowledge with the scientists' skill enabling a reconfiguration of the mathematical structure of the model, allowing the group to learn about local flooding.

The paper is based on a research project that engaged with and intervened in flood risk management in national policy and in two localities. Building on recent work in STS, we develop a framework for political analysis that complements existing understandings of environmental governance by focusing on the materiality of an issue and the ways in which it is articulated through various sites, shifting between different political modalities (its political trajectory). Each modality represents a different way in which an issue is framed such that it is opened to questioning and contestation, or subject to closure and containment. We conclude that differing understandings of what makes an environmental issue political mean that researchers need to pay close attention to how their own work is political and to different meanings and constitutions of 'the public', as well as looking for more ways of engaging with the politics of environmental issues in different modalities.

Water research is introduced from the combined perspectives of natural and social science and cases of citizen and stakeholder coproduction of knowledge. Using the overarching notion of transdisciplinarity, we examine how interdisciplinary and participatory water research has taken place and could be developed further. It becomes apparent that water knowledge is produced widely within society, across certified disciplinary experts and noncertified expert stakeholders and citizens. However, understanding and management interventions may remain partial, or even conflicting, as much research across and between traditional disciplines has failed to integrate disciplinary paradigms due to philosophical, methodological, and communication barriers. We argue for more agonistic relationships that challenge both certified and noncertified knowledge productively. These should include examination of how water research itself embeds and is embedded in social context and performs political work. While case studies of the cultural and political economy of water knowledge exist, we need more empirical evidence on how exactly culture, politics, and economics have shaped this knowledge and how and at what junctures this could have turned out differently. We may thus channel the coproductionist critique productively to bring perspectives, alternative knowledges, and implications into water politics where they were not previously considered; in an attempt to counter potential lock‐in to particular water policies and technologies that may be inequitable, unsustainable, or unacceptable. While engaging explicitly with politics, transdisciplinary water research should remain attentive to closing down moments in the research process, such as framings, path‐dependencies, vested interests, researchers' positionalities, power, and scale. WIREs Water 2016, 3:369–389. doi:10.1002/wat2.1132

TK acknowledges funding by the German Excellence Initiative through IRI THESys. GC acknowledges funding from the Austrian Science Funds (FWF) as part of the Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems (DK-plus W1219-N22). ; Water research is introduced from the combined perspectives of natural and social science and cases of citizen and stakeholder coproduction of knowledge. Using the overarching notion of transdisciplinarity, we examine how interdisciplinary and participatory water research has taken place and could be developed further. It becomes apparent that water knowledge is produced widely within society, across certified disciplinary experts and noncertified expert stakeholders and citizens. However, understanding and management interventions may remain partial, or even conflicting, as much research across and between traditional disciplines has failed to integrate disciplinary paradigms due to philosophical, methodological, and communication barriers. We argue for more agonistic relationships that challenge both certified and noncertified knowledge productively. These should include examination of how water research itself embeds and is embedded in social context and performs political work. While case studies of the cultural and political economy of water knowledge exist, we need more empirical evidence on how exactly culture, politics, and economics have shaped this knowledge and how and at what junctures this could have turned out differently. We may thus channel the coproductionist critique productively to bring perspectives, alternative knowledges, and implications into water politics where they were not previously considered; in an attempt to counter potential lock‐in to particular water policies and technologies that may be inequitable, unsustainable, or unacceptable. While engaging explicitly with politics, transdisciplinary water research should remain attentive to closing down moments in the research process, such as framings, path‐dependencies, vested interests, researchers' positionalities, power, and scale. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

This paper suggests that computer simulation modelling can offer opportunities for redistributing expertise between science and affected publics in relation to environmental problems. However, in order for scientific modelling to contribute to the coproduction of new knowledge claims about environmental processes, scientists need to reposition themselves with respect to their modelling practices. In the paper we examine a process in which two hydrological modellers became part of an extended research collective generating new knowledge about flooding in a small rural town in the UK. This process emerged in a project trialling a novel participatory research apparatus—competency groups—aiming to harness the energy generated in public controversy and enable other than scientific expertise to contribute to environmental knowledge. Analysing the process repositioning the scientists in terms of a dynamic of 'dissociation' and 'attachment', we map the ways in which prevailing alignments of expertise were unravelled and new connections assembled, in relation to the matter of concern. We show how the redistribution of knowledge and skills in the extended research collective resulted in a new computer model, embodying the coproduced flood risk knowledge.

Contemporary bioethics education has been developed predominately within Euro-American contexts, and now, other global regions are increasingly joining the field, leading to a richer global understanding. Nevertheless, many standard bioethics curriculum materials retain a narrow geographic focus. The purpose of this article is to use local cases from the Asia-Pacific region as examples for exploring questions such as 'what makes a case or example truly local, and why?', 'what topics have we found to be best explained through local cases or examples?', and 'how does one identify a relevant local case?' Furthermore, we consider the global application of local cases to help extend the possible scope of the discussion, opening new avenues for the development of practical bioethics educational materials. We begin with a background description and discussion of why local cases enhance bioethics education, move to an overview of what is currently available and what is not for the region, and then outline a discussion of what it means to be local using example cases drawn from Hong Kong, Australia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. We are not creating a casebook but rather constructing by example a toolbox for designing active and dynamic learning cases using regional diversity as contextualised cases with generalised principles.