Science, Life and Politics: Tools for Legitimizing Stories
Four UNT faculty members discuss the challenges and awards of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the approaches they use to communicate the story of their research.
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Everyone loves a good story. Academics are no exception, and in a university with thousands of faculty, there are bound to be interesting stories expressed in very different ways, from poems and films to philosophical arguments and scientific papers. But how effectively can academicians communicate the story of their research to audiences outside their discipline? The perception of 'academic elites' persists, perhaps, for good reason. As important as it is to vet ideas and publish among peers, the impetus to solve important environmental problems and other issues in the world requires new strategies for interaction and shared expertise. Yet not everyone knows the tools and techniques to reach diverse audiences or realizes the importance of doing so.
Four University of North Texas faculty members from different departments discuss this challenge as it concerns their respective areas of research and explore how other groups legitimize message. Melinda Levin, chair of the Department of Radio, Television and Film and a documentary filmmaker, Steve Wolverton, an environmental scientist and archaeologist teaching in the Department of Geography, Robert Melchior Figueroa, environmental justice philosopher and associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, and David Taylor, a poet, writer and author teaching in the Department of English, came together as panelists in a 2010 conference sponsored by the Society of Ethnobiology in Victoria, B.C. to present the topic: Science, Life and Politics: Tools for Legitimizing Stories.
Wolverton said the idea for the panel evolved from conversations with Taylor. Both share a fascination for the subject of humans in nature — how people relate to the environment and the biological world and how biocultural phenomena occur in the word. Wolverton and Taylor approach this subject differently with colleagues from their own areas of expertise, yet they appreciate sharing stories through the lens of each other's discipline. The dialogue is richer for the exchange. This raised interesting questions about the process of collaboration and understanding. Wolverton serves as a board member for the Society, and since the ethnobiology conference brings together people from different cultures and backgrounds looking at how to change their relationship with the environment — researchers, ethnobiographers, First Nations people, community activists — it seemed like a good venue to present ideas of storytelling and its potential to enhance interactions across fields. Levin and Figueroa were included to broaden the dialogue. All of the panelists are involved with environmental conservation in their area of research and share an appreciation for how humans interact with the world around them. Wolverton says, "We thought it would be fun to take the tools of our trades, put them on display, and talk about how we tell and legitimize the research as stories and about our interactions with the environment."
In reflecting on the conference experience, Taylor says, "Our panel was really interesting for a number of people there because it was looking at the question of story and the question of how interdisciplinarity can actually play a part in a community in making choices, in doing outreach, in making ethical choices, or putting together works that inspire people … that's the part that excited me."
As a documentary director who collaborates fairly often with anthropologists, philosophers and hard scientists, Levin is interested in how her expertise as a media storyteller can overlap and support what those in other fields are doing. She considers, "If we are going to communicate to folks outside of the ivory tower of the academy — which is what we all want and need to do — we need to think about who our audience is, what their expectations are, and really go back and build stories in a way that leans on the (historical) traditions of storytelling; but doing so within the realm of the very research that we're doing. So there are a lot of different ways to encompass that."
In his field of environmental justice, Figueroa studies the power dynamics behind stories. Stories have become sacrosanct, but whose story is it, and who gets to be the expert, anyway? Figueroa notes, "Sciences and academics often don't call what they're doing storytelling, they call it something far more expertise oriented. So it leaves people who are non-academics with nothing but stories to tell. There's often a citizen group who's trying to convey to somebody who has expertise or political power or corporate power that they are actually being dramatically harmed by the activities of that power … they only have story to convey, 'Look, my experience is this. You have an obligation to recognize my experience.'" As a panelist, Figueroa wanted to convey that scientists, too, are engaged in story telling and "need to listen to the stories of other folks … as a way of bringing the legacy of science forward to citizens."
The need for discourse becomes increasingly urgent against a backdrop of environmental crises. In the wake of the recent Gulf oil spill, many agents vie for the storytelling platform, and the toolkits of persuasion vary. Journalists, politicians, multi-national corporations, grassroots groups, ecologists, lawyers, neighbors and the federal government 'spin' story for different audiences and ends.
The discipline of ethnobiology concerns itself with human/environmental relations, and Wolverton emphasizes that for many ethnographers, this means living with other people for long periods of time and becoming part of their world. "The penetrating aspect of ethnobiology is that they're not just people trying to tell someone else's story, they've lived part of it. And it's a very difficult discipline to be a practitioner in. Because these people are working in some of the worst human/environmental/cultural/biocultural situations in the world, at times, story telling is incredibly important in every single way we can imagine; because if we can't do it, that message can't get out. And their message is a personal one, it's a human one, it's one that matters for the world."
Conferences encourage dialogue and exchange, and seeds sown off site should stimulate faculty at home base, as well. The ideas of 'story' explored by this panel are relevant to the university environment at a time when faculty in hard sciences and other areas are increasingly pressured to reach broader audiences. Universities are adopting cross collaboration initiatives as a strategy to facilitate dialogue and expand research infrastructure. UNT has taken innovative measures to implement this model across campus — from the creation of interdisciplinary centers and research clusters that join faculty across areas of expertise, to the design of work spaces, such as the Environmental Education, Science and Technology building (ESAT), that forge conversations and interaction through the co-location of offices and classrooms representing multiple departments. Examples such as these are investments in collaboration, but whether or not the relationships will deepen will depend on the dialogue that guides the exchange, among faculty as well as the administration. Collaboration requires a commitment and curiosity to learn the stories and symbols central to each other's field.
For Taylor, interdisciplinary exchange is one way to understand the broader implications of a situation, and yet it requires more humility than anything else he's encountered in a university. He said you have to feel somewhat comfortable within your field, and then you also have to feel as though you can find the limits of where your field works and doesn't. "What you've got to do is admit, 'I don't really understand this, I don't really understand the broader implications of maybe even what I do, that they can help me understand.' It helps you ask better questions of each other, and, frankly, questions that we're not used to hearing. And then I look back to my own discipline, and it changes the way that I look at that."
"I think I fall toward the science side of research — you know, fairly empirical with tests of hypotheses … that's the way I go about telling stories in archaeology," says Wolverton. But he acknowledges that many terms and concepts specific to other disciplines are new to him. "In human ecology and in ethnobiology … some people in some cultures don't even think of the world around them as an environment; they think of everything as part of them. And so you see terms in the literature like 'non-human persons' — animals and trees that are equals to you — foreign world to me, right? I'm starting to acknowledge that maybe I don't know much."
Levin concurs, "We all have to become more vulnerable in dismantling these pillars. We have to be able to be wrong and say we don't understand that, and go from there, and work as a team ... I think we can become leaders in collaboration, communication dialogue."
Not all research makes good campfire stories, but with kindling and stoking, education can be a bonfire, and eager audiences of all ages and backgrounds are ready to be inspired. Wolverton reflects, "Stories aren't just children's stories, and they're not myths; they are those things, too. They're not … sub-standard in the academic world. They're what we do. Stories are sharing."
Learn more about the panelists, their projects and conversation by listening to the podcast and/or reading the transcription and clicking on the links below.
UNT Panelists
Melinda Levin is executive producer of an international, interdisciplinary documentary short film called "River Plant," with crews and communities in nine countries "working to allow communities who live on rivers to tell the story of the river that's a part of their life." She co-directed a new, award-winning film with Dr. Irene Klaver of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies entitled "The New Frontier: Sustainable Ranching in the American West."
Additional Context
River Planet — movie excerpt (coming soon)
Steve Wolverton's expertise is in the area of applied paleozoology. He analyzes the 'stories' of the Trinity River watershed — the historical cast of characters from thousands of years ago that characterize the surrounding terrain and streambed ecology. Mussels, white-tailed deer and black bears are some of the species included in these studies.
Additional Context
David Taylor is involved in a biodiversity atlas project for the Dallas/Fort Worth area that focuses on the flora and fauna of the Trinity River watershed — in the present tense. Borrowing from geology, geography, human ecology and natural history, he envisions an interactive component in the spirit of the 'traveling trunk' that will involve input from many individuals.
Additional Context
The Log from the Sea of Cortez Poems: A Series
Robert Melchior Figueroa is Director of the Environmental Justice Project in the Center for Environmental Philosophy. Recent efforts include the Uluru Project, a restorative justice project — a process of reconciliation and mediation concerning the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park of Australia and its joint management structure between traditional owners, the Anangu aborigines, and the Commonwealth system. He recently edited the special issue (Fall 2010) of the Journal of Environmental Philosophy on ecotourism and environmental justice.
Additional Context
By Julie West, UNT publications specialist, Office of Research and Economic Development
Spring 2011
