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alintheopen / SCOPE

A repository for open science communication projects
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Ellie Downing progress blog #6

Open jesiathe opened 4 years ago

jesiathe commented 4 years ago

Hello friends,

I recently started my PhD, because in the words of Luther Vandross, "Never too much" (research and study into museums, science communication and community). A few bumps and twists getting started, but I'm here and starting to find a research rhythm.

My background is as a science communicator and educator in the museum space, where I worked with a lot of excellent people from a spectrum of fields. Museology (museum studies) is inherently multi-disciplinary, which was something that first attracted me to the field. I find being able to work with multi-disciplinary researchers and practitioners really exciting, and an excellent antidote for career FOMO. You are able to collaborate with, learn from and create a community with an incredible range of excellent people, all of whom have vastly different skills. What sealed the deal for my love of museums though, was the sense of community they were able to foster and encourage. My undergraduate training was in libraries, records and archives, but it was also the public programming and flexible learning environments focused on creating safe spaces that helped me settle on museums. They are spaces that aren't afraid of difficult conversations. Some focus explicitly on it like the Museum of Broken Relationships and the Climate Museum. But in having difficult conversations, they build resilience, create and encourage a culture and build a strong community. And this is what I will be researching; trying to work out how what I've learnt from studying and working in museums can be used by science communicators, with the goal of build strong communities. Communities where people feel comfortable with science, even if they have no interest in it as a career. Where everyone can be a science facilitator if they'd like to be, and where science is part of every decision-making process.

Finding out I was part of the Science Communication, Outreach, Participation and Education (SCOPE) research group was the cherry on top of the excitement cake. The excitement cake first apparated when I found out that Dr Alice Motion (@alintheopen) and Dr Chiara O'Reilly (two academics I greatly admire) agreed to be my supervisors. A huge sentence which doesn't even begin to reflect how much excitement, eagerness and general good vibes I'm feeling about it.

I'm excited to be able to learn from the other researchers and practitioners in the SCOPE group and am optimistic about the great things we will achieve.

Until next time, -Ellie

jesiathe commented 4 years ago

Coming out of a summer of incredibly damaging bushfires, into a global pandemic and a long overdue spotlight on systemic racism and inequality; starting a PhD in 2020 has given me a lot to think about in terms of how my research relates to, and hopefully makes a practical and positive impact on, my communities.

It has highlighted that my personal ethics, principals and believes cannot be extracted from research approach and goals, and that I need to spend time and effort making sure any outputs reflect the behaviours I hold myself accountable to.

If my goal truly is to help create “Communities where people feel comfortable with science, even if they have no interest in it as a career,” as I stated in my previous post, then I need to make sure that there is conscious and overt anti-racism thinking and methods built into my research.

As I have started reading for my research, but also to understand more about what is happening in the world right now, gaps between what I thought I was reading for personal gain and what was to inform my research have closed. Personal social media feeds are now providing incredible resources for research, such as this Instagram post which started me on a research trail of digital activism.

My reading before the recent activism of the Black Lives Matter movement had focused on how the function of the Museum needs to actively engage with social justice. I had done short presentations on writings by The Empathetic Museum collective and the article “Nine meta-functions for science museums and science centres” to explore contemporary museology, beyond the readings I’d done in 2016 on new museology for my research masters. What was apparent in both, was the call for museums to be more vocal and consciously engaged with their role as non-neutral spaces. There was also a strong call to the people working within the museums to engage with their humanity: our induvial desire to find and connect with people, to have our feelings heard and validated, and to see not only ourselves but the values we uphold within the museum space. The call is to acknowledge that these are common desires and worth striving but understand that currently are only satisfied for a select few.

This is where the true work begins, and what I think will be a cornerstone of my research. Working out what I actually mean when I say ‘community’; understanding the inherent privilege I bring to my understanding and conceptions of how to engage with communities which represent experiences different to my own; and acknowledging that to get anywhere near achieving the goal I have set out I will need to change the way I think and write so that I create space for others rather than take it up unconsciously.

I want to contribute to creating a more equitable experience of science. Working backwards, this means I have a lot to learn about why people may not want to engage with science. I also need to explore different modes of engagement and understand more about the requirements and biases of each mode, be they technical, economic, geographical, racial, social, educational, etc.

As a starting point, I have been reading more to understand science as something that is culturally consumed. This has involved reading more about the creation and consumption of culture within a museum, as well as reading more to understand how this is achieved within a museum space. I have also been reflecting on my experience in science communication, predominately conversations I have had exploring how a museological approach differs from a scientific approach.

A research thread I want to follow is exploring the idea that science communication does not have this same history of literature addressing the socio-political impact of its work, as museology does. The influence of literature like this is that at both an academic level and within the industry, there is that there is a strong practice of self-reflection and critique.

The conscious recognition of the power and influence we have as museologists and museum workers on enabling people to access, enjoy and celebrate their own culture, results in a strong ethical commitment to not abuse this. This isn’t to say all museologists and museum workers; recent actions of several institutions have reveals an overwhelming lack of willingness to truly engage with their role in system racism. But there are strong movements within the practice fighting for this to be central to how museums and their workers conduct their work.

Science communication literature is starting to address it’s ethical responsibility. It will be interesting to see how this grows and the practical applications, especially in response to Black American and First Nations Peoples, and other Black, Indigenous and People of colour (BIPOC) members of the STEM community commenting on the lack of support, if not overt racism and violence, they’ve felt from both the wider STEM community and tertiary institutions.

jesiathe commented 4 years ago

Background theory for ACSME 2020 presentation

In establishing a theoretical foundation for my multidisciplinary research, I’m researching how to adapt museological theories and practices into a science communication setting. You can view my ACSME presentation titled 'Lessons for science education and communication from museology ' here.

My research has a strong focus on how museological theory can help science communication actions foster a greater sense of community and belonging, enabling positive identity formation in relation to science. Practices of the two disciplines are complimentary and often co-exist; museology doesn’t necessarily offer “new” ideas, but rather is another discipline and field with existing practices, to incorporate into science communication practice and strengthen the impact of actions. In my Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education presentation, I explored the capacity of three museological theories to inform the construction of positive science experiences: flow, narrative framework and The Empathetic Museum.

Flow

Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi,1997) offers a way to understand how to structure experiences that enable self-motivated learning. The experience of flow often occurs ‘when one’s skills are neither overmatched nor underutilized to meet a given challenge’ (Shernoff et al., 2003,). It is, ‘The metaphor...that many people have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives.’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

To foster a state of flow in a constructed educational experience, you must:

The value of being able to foster flow in an educational environment you’ve constructed, is that elements of the environment become linked to an experience positive identity formation. Flow rewards learners with experiences of positive identify formation (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Hooper-Greenhill, 2007; Shernoff et al., 2003). This in turn encourages the people to repeat the behaviours that made them feel good and promotes positively reinforced, cyclical, self-motivated learning.

Museology focuses on the construction of engagement environment that encourages flow, so that the museum space becomes associated with an experience of positive identity formation. I am researching to better understand how science communicators can construct experiences of flow, so science becomes a stimulus associated with positive identity construction. The outcome would be that science communication experiences makes people feel good about themselves, fosters learning and encourages people to engage with science again in the future.

The experience of flow is significant because if several people indicate that they experience flow, then there is potential to weave these experiences together and create a sense community based on the shared experience they had, in the educational environment you constructed.

Narrative

In a museum, the information displayed within an exhibition are often understood to be authoritative to a visitor; in the controlling of what is seen and how it is seen, museums gain social authority and produce cultural gaze (Casey, 2003). This is often true of science as well; for those who don’t understand science as a rolling conversation of current accepted theory, science has a near-impenetrable authority.

The narrative framework enables individual interpretation, understanding and personal significance related to specific experiences and information to create a sense of identity (Anderson & Great Britain, 1997). It is a way to form a community centred on shared and related experiences, and to understand how communities might then respond to other stimuli (Ntzani, 2015; Ross, 2004). The space (be it a physical, intellectual, or emotional) created through narrative enables the development of individual identity in relation to other people. While narrative can help achieve a delineated outcome, e.g. educational goals, this isn’t the only goal possible through narrative. The narrative framework allows the creation of an environment where learning is based on affirmation of what someone knows and brings to the topic, rather than judging their adherence to binary right and wrong answers. People feeling like they experienced something significant and wanting to engage again/in the future is the main goal of narrative in museology.

Different participation motivations are supported, along with various social learning processes because of its ability to encourages participation and satisfy individual goals; narrative allows for multiple interpretations and understandings to exist simultaneously and equally. The space also becomes associated with positive and affirming experiences, as it is what enabled these connections. Peripheral benefits are that the space that is encouraging narrative can increase transparency by sharing their own story as part of the experience.

The Empathetic Museum

Underlying ‘Flow’ and Narrative to help achieve the goal of science fostering a greater sense of community and belonging is a third; the need for empathetic understanding of the people you are engaging with. While science doesn’t have the same cultural role as a museum, it has played a role in the establishment of colonial power (see previous post). Through empathetic practices, I argue that science communicators can begin to understand more about who they are engaging with and how other experiences may influence audience engagement with science.

The Empathetic Museum, a collaboration of professionals formed in 2014 argue that a museum must examine its relationship to social issues in order to grow and engage with communities that aren’t in the field. This call to action is stemmed in the white privilege and norms that museums uphold and propagate, and the thrust of the argument is that museums won’t be able to connect and resonate with non-white people, if those people don’t feel seen and safe in the space. I argue this is true for science as well.

The collective built staged steps to help become more empathetic called ‘The Maturity Model' to guide a more empathetic approach. The end goal of this process is that people and organisations who participate understanding more about the issues faced within the wider community that surrounds them. By going through this process and gaining this understanding, science communicators may be able to start shifting and changing the science space to accommodate people who previously, couldn’t see how they could or feel safe enough to engage.

This in turn creates a scientific culture that allows for differences of experiences and can celebrate and uplift people to create a stronger and more diverse field. By virtue of the steps of the Maturity Model, it would help science stay relevant to contemporary communities.

Tools like the Maturity Model highlight that within museology, there is a toolkit for science to help create points of connection and hook in new audience and show the impact and relevancy of science in a light. The value of this clear and direct dialogue where issues are named, rather than alluded to or assumed, is that it validates those who experience it and would show science communicators as actively participating in addressing it. This transparency must run parallel to actions striving for inclusion, to show that the systemic biases that have privileged some are being interrogated, and the goals of this interrogation are made clear.

This last point ties into another research stream: the role and responsibility of transparency of intention and purpose in both museology and science communication. My research will test if science communication actions that motivated by transparency, rather than educational or other goals, can achieve equitable engagement with individuals and communities. I am also exploring the capacity of new museological to help science communication to achieve ethical goals, i.e. achieving the goals of ‘democratic science’.

It is also important to note that the term “communities” is not without its own problems. As Jennings et al. point out, community is often used as a code word when discussing social justice and transformative change, failing to define what is being addressed or is trying to be achieved (Jennings et al., 2019; Jennings and Jones-Rizzi, 2017). Direct discussions using true descriptions of the issues being addressed, e.g. racism, colonialism etc. need to be used in conjunction with words like “community” to make intentions transparent.

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