Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Sustainable development
- All Subjects: Science--Political aspects.
- Creators: Hannah, Mark
Description
Advancing sustainable food systems requires holistic understanding and solutions-oriented approaches that transcend disciplines, so expertise in a variety of subjects is necessary. Proposed solutions are usually technically or socially oriented, but disagreement over the best approach to the future of food dominates the dialogue. Technological optimists argue that scientific advances are necessary to feed the world, but environmental purists believe that reductions in consumption and waste are sufficient and less risky. Life cycle assessment (LCA) helps resolve debates through quantitative analysis of environmental impacts from products which serve the same function. LCA used to compare dietary choices reveals that simple plant-based diets are better for the environment than diets that include animal products. However, analysis of soy protein isolate (SPI) demonstrates that certain plant-based proteins may be less preferable for the environment than some unprocessed meats in several categories due to additional impacts that come from industrial processing. LCAs' focus on production risks ignoring consumers, but the food system exists to serve consumers, who can be major drivers of change. Therefore, the path to a sustainable food system requires addressing consumption issues as well. Existing methods for advancing sustainable food systems that equate more information with better behavior or performance are insufficient to create change. Addressing food system issues requires sufficient tacit knowledge to understand how arguments are framed, what the supporting content is, the findings of primary sources, and complex and controversial dialogue surrounding innovations and interventions for food system sustainability. This level of expertise is called interactional competence and it is necessary to drive and maintain holistic progress towards sustainability. Development strategies for interactional competence are informed by studying the motivations and strategies utilized by vegans. A new methodology helps advance understanding of expertise development by assessing levels of expertise and reveals insights into how vegans maintain commitment to a principle that influences their daily lives. The study of veganism and expertise reveals that while providing information to debunk fallacies is important, the development of tacit knowledge is fundamental to advance to a stage of competence.
ContributorsBerardy, Andrew (Author) / Seager, Thomas P (Thesis advisor) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Costello, Christine (Committee member) / Landis, Amy (Committee member) / Wharton, Christopher (Christopher Mack), 1977- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Without scientific expertise, society may make catastrophically poor choices when faced with problems such as climate change. However, scientists who engage society with normative questions face tension between advocacy and the social norms of science that call for objectivity and neutrality. Policy established in 2011 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) required their communication to be objective and neutral and this research comprised a qualitative analysis of IPCC reports to consider how much of their communication is strictly factual (Objective), and value-free (Neutral), and to consider how their communication had changed from 1990 to 2013. Further research comprised a qualitative analysis of structured interviews with scientists and non-scientists who were professionally engaged in climate science communication, to consider practitioner views on advocacy. The literature and the structured interviews revealed a conflicting range of definitions for advocacy versus objectivity and neutrality. The practitioners that were interviewed struggled to separate objective and neutral science from attempts to persuade, and the IPCC reports contained a substantial amount of communication that was not strictly factual and value-free. This research found that science communication often blurred the distinction between facts and values, imbuing the subjective with the authority and credibility of science, and thereby damaging the foundation for scientific credibility. This research proposes a strict definition for factual and value-free as a means to separate science from advocacy, to better protect the credibility of science, and better prepare scientists to negotiate contentious science-based policy issues. The normative dimension of sustainability will likely entangle scientists in advocacy or the appearance of it, and this research may be generalizable to sustainability.
ContributorsMcClintock, Scott (Author) / Van Der Leeuw, Sander (Thesis advisor) / Klinsky, Sonja (Committee member) / Chhetri, Nalini (Committee member) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Women are under-represented in engineering, in school and in the workplace. Reasons for this include the socio-historical masculinization of technology, which has been established by feminist technology researchers such as Faulkner, Lohan and Cockburn, and makes developing role models of women engineers difficult. The under-representation of women in engineering is a social problem that typically lies outside the area of interest of rhetoricians. However, my dissertation considers storytelling by women engineers as a powerful rhetorical tool, one that is well-suited for the particular structural inequalities endemic to engineering. I analyze stories told by participants in an oral history project conducted by the Society of Women Engineers, with women engineers who worked between the 1940’s and the early 2000’s. I use a textual coding research method to reveal the claims participants make through stories, themes that are evident across those claims, and how women engineers effectively use stories to advance those claims. My study extends the scholarly understanding of the rhetoric of engineering work. I find that in their stories participants argue for a complex relationship between social and technical work; they describe how technical thinking helps them work through social problems, how technical work is socially situated, that an interest in technical work impacts family and interpersonal relationships, and how making career decisions is facilitated by social relationships. They also demonstrate considerable rhetorical expertise in their use of narrative. As a collection these stories meet a pressing need: the need for an understanding of engineering and women engineers that creates possibilities for change. They meet this need first by helping the audience understand both significant systemic oppressions and the problem-solving individual actions that can be taken in response (in ways that highlight possibilities without placing the full responsibility for change on women engineers), and second by illustrating a heterogenous understanding of engineering and women engineers (in order to avoid essentializing women and essentializing technology). As a result of these qualities, the stories are a way to get to ‘know’ engineers and engineering from a distance, which is exactly the pressing lack felt by so many potential women engineers.
ContributorsMoxley-Kelly, Sean (Author) / Boyd, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Rose, Shirley (Committee member) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020