Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating the Use and Impact of Social Knowledge Claims concerning Regional Changes

本项目探讨了将气候变化重新定义为人权问题的认知意义。将人权应用于气候变化的惊人之处在于它如何将社会知识与自然科学进行对话。与许多环境问题一样，自然科学知识和专家在气候变化问题的构建中占有重要地位。相比之下，倡导以人权为基础的方法的人将气候变化重新定义为一个社会问题，并依靠社会知识主张来支持他们的主张。通过内容分析和对关键行动者的访谈，本项目分析了与气候变化有关的主导话语和知识创造实践中的这一重要转变。具体来说，它提出了两个问题。倡导者如何运用社会知识来证明人权与气候变化之间的联系？社会知识的使用对气候辩论有什么影响？这样的研究为研究社会知识提供了一个基本框架，并提供了关于社会知识在政策辩论中的作用的见解，以及赋予社会知识可信度的实践。这个项目进一步扩展了我们对科学和政治秩序共同产生的理解，从涉及自然科学的案例扩展到涉及社会知识的案例。潜在的更广泛的影响除了其智力贡献之外，研究社会知识的部署如何潜在地挑战气候变化的主流自然科学结构，可能会产生克服经常伴随着技术官僚辩论的政治僵局的策略，从而促进更有效的政策制定。进一步分析人权框架的政治影响，包括其对有资格参与气候辩论的参与者范围的影响，也可能为如何将包括公众在内的更广泛的参与者纳入科学和政治辩论提供实际见解。

IntroductionThis project examines the epistemic significance of attempts to reframe climate change as a human rights concern. What is striking about the application of human rights to climate change is how it brings social knowledge into conversation with natural science. As with many environmental problems, natural scientific knowledge and experts figure prominently in the construction of climate change. By contrast, advocates of a human rights-based approach re-frame climate change as a social problem and rely on social knowledge claims to support their assertions.Intellectual MeritThrough content analysis and interviews with key actors, this project analyzes this important shift in the dominant discourse and knowledge-making practices in relation to climate change. Specifically, it asks two questions. How do advocates employ social knowledge claims to demonstrate the link between human rights and climate change? What impact may the use of social knowledge claims have on the climate debate? Such research contributes to a basic framework for studying social knowledge and provides insight as to the role of social knowledge in policy debates, as well as practices that lend social knowledge credibility. This project further extends our understanding of the co-production of scientific and political orders from cases involving the natural sciences to those involving social knowledge. Potential Broader ImpactsBeyond its intellectual contributions, examining how the deployment of social knowledge potentially challenges dominant natural scientific constructions of climate change may yield strategies for overcoming the political gridlock that often accompanies technocratic debate, thus facilitating more effective policy-making. Further analyzing the human rights frame's political impact, including its effect on the range of participants eligible to contribute to the climate debate, may also provide practical insights as to how to incorporate a wider range of participants, including the public, into scientific and political debates.