Author: Diogo de Oliveira – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil

Co-authors:

  • Bruce Lewenstein – Cornell University, United States

Centuries before modern science, humankind developed many ways of understanding nature. The accumulated knowledge and its practical application in ordinary life as habits that endure over the years make part of the cultural heritage that traditional communities bring to contemporary life. Many indigenous tribes and traditional communities have been extinguished but many others still survive, especially in Latin America, in the Amazon Forest Region. Living in preserved areas and struggling against powerful industrial, mineral and agricultural companies, activists in traditional communities combine their traditional knowledge with data and analyses drawing on formal scientific knowledge to create arguments for shaping public opinion. The combination of traditional knowledge, practical knowledge, and academic knowledge seems to be a particularly powerful way of constructing potent arguments. Traditional knowledge is also a source for research companies and universities as they conduct their studies; but their use of principles discovered by minority populations is sometimes criticized as expropriation. Our paper investigates these relations and points out the importance of combining local knowledge with formal scientific knowledge to convince global citizens about the realities of socio-environmental conflicts. This paper is part of a project of understanding socio-environmental conflicts through the perspective of science communication.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Transformation

Author: Diogo de Oliveira – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil

Co-authors:

  • Bruce Lewenstein – Cornell University, United States

This insight paper explores how to study a topic relatively rarely discussed in PCST research: the place of NGOs in public communication of science and technology. To do so, we use an example from Latin America where science communication, environmental activism, and social movements interact. The paper draws on data from NGOs about how they use science communication as a tool for telling stories about environmental conflicts that frequently turn violent. According to the NGO Global Witness, almost 1600 land and environmental activists in Latin America – mainly peasants, indigenous people and members of traditional communities in conflictual areas — lost their lives between 2002 and 2018, almost three times the rest of the world. The main goal of the paper is to understand the use of scientific storytelling by NGOs and activists to defend their point of view and to influence public opinion towards their position. We used multiple methods: Textual and quantitative data is drawn from the formal reports of four NGOs – Global Witness (United Kingdom), Pastoral Commission of Land (Brazil), Editorial Board (Colombia) and Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Mexico). We also conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives of the NGOs about their use of science communication.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Transformation

Author: Diogo de Oliveira – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil

Co-authors:

  • Jean Ann Bellini – Comissão Pastoral da Terra (Pastoral Land Comission), Brazil
  • Bruce Lewenstein – Cornell University, United States
  • Anaid Olivares – National Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, Mexico

According to the Environmental Justice Atlas, in April 2019, there were 2776 active Socio-Environmental Conflicts worldwide. The actual number is probably larger. NGO’s, academics, science journalists, and policymakers are some of the actors involved, making issues of science communication key to understanding the conflicts. The issues are diverse – from nuclear to land conflicts, from mineral ores to fossil fuels. The Global Witness reports – from 2002 to 2018 – show that at least 1733 persons were killed in socio-environmental conflicts. Again, because of obstructions to accessing data, threats to denouncers, and many other reasons, the real numbers are also certainly larger. This alarming amount of people killed and the environmental damages that they were struggling against, reflect the failure at many scales of many agents in this complex scenario. Discussing and reducing these numbers is a challenge for science communication, one of the common interest to environmentalists, academics, journalists, and politicians.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Roundtable discussion
Theme: Transformation

Author: Diogo de Oliveira – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil

Co-authors:
Ludemberg Bezerra – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (Brasil)
Ana Holanda – Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (Brasil)

This research assumes that the role of the contemporary universities is to build bridges with society. It is the space where the needs of the population find support and practical solutions based on research that seeks to improve the well-being of all. Thus, researchers connected with reality and attentive to what happens around them produce studies that are consistent with the improvement of the conditions for the exercise of citizenship.

In this sense, within the perspective of the public communication of science, the Lynaldo Magazine is produced by students of Social Communication at the Federal University of Campina Grande. The purpose of this publication is to make the role of teachers working in research and extension, inside and outside the academic community, visible.

This research, which is in the field of Communications, starts its analysis from the traditions of science communications in the Italian Renaissance, including the French, Prussian-German and Anglo-Saxon traditions, coming to understand that science only truly reaches its function when it is shared and includes the non-researcher population into the debate on its directions, benefits and failures.

The purpose of this study is to use Lynaldo Magazine’s publications to measure the scope of its subjects, its importance for the promotion of the scientific debate and its capacity to constitute a tool that encourages the university-society link. It is based on the premise that the publication of this journal favors partnerships between teachers (facilitating the accomplishment of trans, multi and interdisciplinary studies), plays a relevant role in the training of students in that it puts them in contact with researchers from different areas of knowledge and favors the inclusion of non-specialists into the debate on the science produced, largely with public money.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual talk
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Applying science communication research to practice