Standard Grant: An Ethnography of Pathways to Interdisciplinary Knowledge Integration at Two Environmental Science Sites in Brazil

本项目旨在使用科学和技术研究(STS)的工具来加强对跨越规模、学科和国际边界的科学合作的实证理解。这名研究人员将对两个国际科学项目进行人种学调查，这些项目寻求整合有关巴西亚马逊地区微生物的知识。巴西亚马逊地区是全球生物多样性的储存地，也是国际科学伙伴关系的前沿。她将使用定性和直观的方法审查科学家的合作实践，以完成她的研究目标，即确定更有效地整合知识的具体途径，并促进对跨学科科学和国际合作的本体论和地缘政治层面的理论理解。该项目将通过确定跨学科和国际科学的最佳做法来产生社会效益。它还将通过人文探索，特别是艺术和视觉媒介，加强公众对分子和微生物环境科学的新趋势的了解。该项目的预期成果包括对两名学生进行STS理论和方法方面的指导和培训；编写一份针对公共资助机构和科学从业人员的白皮书；在影响较大的期刊上发表若干出版物；对博物馆进行为期三个月的参观，并开发相关的网站和教材。传播计划包括在两次国际会议上发言，与来自巴西和加拿大的学生和合作者共同编写出版物，以及开发一个英文和葡萄牙文项目网站。技术概述这项亚马逊地区环境科学的民族志研究将确定更有效的知识整合的途径，并将推动STS中关于跨学科科学和国际合作的本体论和地缘政治层面的理论。它将在三个方面取得重要的智力进展：(1)关于有效知识整合的新的经验知识，包括跨规模、学科和文化合作的障碍和最佳实践；(2)新的研究方法，直观地解释学科文化如何在构建和整合多个规模的研究对象的方法上存在差异；(3)改进的科学理论作为视觉实践，其基础是个体主体如何体验，甚至是通过不同规模的想象和实践之间的接触而转变。该项目的重点是巴西亚马逊地区，该项目将对该地区的知识生产产生有用的经验性见解，该地区的科学探索、专业知识和知识提取几十年来一直深陷政治争议。加强系统地了解影响协作知识生产的因素以应对环境变化的研究是公认的优先事项。

General Audience Summary This project aims to use the tools of science and technology studies (STS) to enhance empirical understanding of scientific collaboration across scales, disciplines, and international borders. The investigator will engage in an ethnographic inquiry of two international science projects seeking to integrate knowledge about microbes in the Brazilian Amazon, a global reservoir of biodiversity and frontier for international science partnerships. She will examine the collaborative practices of scientists using qualitative and visual methods to complete her research objectives, which are to identify concrete pathways to more effective knowledge integration and to advance theoretical understanding of the ontological and geopolitical dimensions of interdisciplinary science and international collaboration. The project will generate societal benefits by identifying best practices in interdisciplinary and international science. It will also enhance public understanding of new trends in molecular and microbial environmental science through humanistic inquiry, specifically art and visual medium. Expected outcomes of the project include the mentoring and training of two students in STS theory and methods; a white paper aimed at public funding agencies and science practitioners; several publications in high-impact journals; and a three-month museum visit with development of an associated website and educational materials. Dissemination plans include presentations at two international conferences, co-authored publications with students and collaborators from Brazil and Canada, and the development of a project website in English and Portuguese. Technical Summary This ethnographic study of environmental science in the Amazon will identify pathways to more effective knowledge integration and will advance theories in STS regarding the ontological and geopolitical dimensions of interdisciplinary science and international collaboration. It will make important intellectual advances on three fronts: (1) New empirical knowledge regarding effective knowledge integration, including the barriers and best practices in collaboration across scales, disciplines, and cultures; (2) Novel research methods that visually explain how disciplinary cultures diverge in their approaches to framing and integrating objects of inquiry at multiple scales; and (3) Improved theories of science as visual practice, grounded in how individual subjects experience and are even transformed by encounters between differing scaling imaginaries and practices. With a focus on the Brazilian Amazon, the project will produce useful empirical insights about knowledge production in a region where scientific exploration, expertise, and knowledge extraction has been mired in political controversy for decades. Research that enhances systematic understanding of factors affecting collaborative knowledge production in response to environmental change is a recognized priority.