Miranda and a co-author, environmental studies professor Salma Monani of Gettysburg College, studied two energy projects involving partnerships between U.S.-based energy companies and native groups. They were interested in the “ambivalent intersections of marketing and social/environmental justice” in corporate marketing materials, and looked at such themes as economic development and the use of such native archetypes as “the Ecological Indian.”

The authors report several positive findings, including the “absolute absence” of reductive Indian stereotypes, but they also note there’s actually a lack of overt reference to tribal connections in some of the communications output, and less than equal partnership in the running of the projects themselves.

The piece is available online here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2011.646966

"I selected this topic because it seems important to me to recognize that science has a life outside out the laboratory." Hamilton is the fourth recipient of the Faculty of Public Affairs Research Excellence Award.

Since 2007, the Faculty of Public Affairs has honoured faculty researchers with the Faculty of Public Affairs Research Excellence Award.  Recipients are awarded a good-sized stipend, or a modest stipend and a teaching release.   In either case, the successful applicants are asked to organize a lecture or launch a symposium some time during the following academic year on the topic of their research.

Sheryl Hamilton, FPA’s fourth recipient of the award, is busy preparing for her symposium, Knowing Bodies – Bodies of Knowledge, to be held on March 4th.

The symposium will focus on biotechnologies, and how they are rewriting how science understands the human body.  “These knowledge practices exceed the laboratory and can be found in film, in literature, in the mass and social media, in policy analyses, and in law,” says Hamilton.  “The meanings we ascribe to, and inscribe upon, the body in these various sites of cultural production open up powerful questions of politics and ethics.”

As Canada Research Chair in Communication, Law and Governance, Hamilton’s appointment crosses the disciplines of journalism, communication and law.  As a result, it was no surprise that her proposed research topic would take a multi-disciplinary approach.

“I selected this topic because it seems important to me to recognize that science has a life outside of the laboratory,” she says.  “It is impacted upon by the law and also is primarily witnessed by the public in media and popular culture.  Each of the scholars presenting in the symposium takes an interdisciplinary approach to biotechnological issues.”

A group of interdisciplinary scholars will be exploring the politics and ethics of biotechnology in a range of cultural perspectives. Presentation topics will include reproductive technology, security screening, human cloning, orphan drugs, genetic science in film, and representations of scientists, among others.

The symposium will be of interest to faculty, graduate students and senior undergraduate students who are interested in science and technology studies, law and science, cultural studies of science and technology, critical analysis of biotechnology policy, or, more generally, as Hamilton points out, “in the ways in which we understand science in a myriad of other social locations.”

The day will begin with breakfast at 8:30 p.m. and run until 2:30 p.m., and  followed by a celebration at Baker’s Grille to launch the book, Becoming Biosubjects: Bodies, Systems, Technologies, co-authored by Priscilla Walton and three of the symposium’s participants, and recently released by University of Toronto Press.

Further details on the conference will be available on the Faculty of Public Affairs web site in the coming weeks.