Editors’ note: This is the second of two parts of a larger article. The first part was published in the March 27 issue of The Phoenix.
At Swarthmore, a select few professors like Ben Geller and David Cohen make efforts to bring anticolonial science into their classrooms and practices, but as la paperperson writes in A Third University Is Possible, “Universities are giant machines attached to other machines: war machines, media machines, governmental and nongovernmental policy machines.” These institutional dynamics work to discourage the practice of anticolonial scholarship, but Cohen has discussed how he is acutely aware of this machinery of academia and how he brings it to light in his classroom. Given the reliance of the physical and astronomical sciences on military funding, in his astrophysics seminar this semester, Cohen spent part of one week reading about and discussing NASA’s budget, and in all of his classes, he discusses the invention of the telescope as a tool for naval warfare in the late 16th century, decades before the first recorded instance of Galileo using it to observe the surface of the moon. Bringing these important conversations into the classroom, Cohen fights the oppressive universalism of the university-machine.
It is worth briefly commenting that many professors and departments at Swarthmore also address an issue not discussed above in much detail: how to make science classrooms more inclusive. As a Photon — a physics peer assistant — I think about these issues in structured institutional settings, and this focus on support for traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences engenders a vision of future equity in who gets to call themself a “scientist.” Yet the machinery of the university makes it difficult even for privileged students and professors to truly explore and practice anticolonial science.
Even if the community has a desire to effect change, we are pulled by society away from anticolonial thought and action. Cohen suggests that some professors, thinking their very existence at Swarthmore pushes them more than enough leftward on the political spectrum, simply see anticolonial science as unnecessarily extreme. Others simply want to preserve the dominant view of science as a happy refuge from the messiness of society, which seeps into other disciplines. Still, others fear losing their funding, a fear which may arguably have been unfounded in the past but has gained a new validity. Students, on the other hand, might be concerned with career preparedness and thus seek “marketable” knowledge as opposed to the anticolonial sort.
Community members might also naively conceive of science as “intrinsically progressive — like the little signs you see in people’s yards. You know what they say: ‘In this house, we believe science is real,’” Cohen notes. This unquestionable faith in science can be seen in the greenwashing of science by climate reductionism, a framework perpetuated even by those with admirable intentions. Further, this blind belief in the myth of objective science discourages approaches based in relationality, which serve to combat dominant frameworks and build anticolonial futures.
It is simpler to point out the pitfalls of dominant science and of its institutions than it is to grapple with questions of how to build anticolonial futures in our classrooms. Yet, if the above reflections on doing good science spark transformative thoughts, conversations, and actions, then they contribute to the slow process of change-making.
So, what’s a physics major to do who needs a job, is graduating soon, and has already lost one possible opportunity amidst unreliable funding under Trump? Due to the myriad and murky webs of relationality involved in all scientific practice, being a “purely ethical” scientist at Swarthmore is an impossible feat. As such, Liboiron’s characterization of compromise as “the condition for activism in a fucked-up field” is, to me, a necessary step in conceptualizing the way forward as scientists subject to the whims of dominant paradigms. I find Cohen’s advice for students of the sciences to be extremely cogent:
“You could take an attitude like this: I’m going to do my science — it’s going to be mainstream science. And I know that that is making me complicit with some bad things, and I’m going to keep that in mind and reassess periodically. But I’m going to use it also to motivate me to do some of the things I think are good that mitigate those bad things, at the very least by talking about them.”
If you are a natural sciences major, I invite you to bring up anticolonial science with your friends and professors. If you are not a natural sciences major, I hope you do the same, and I also encourage you to bring your social sciences or humanities focus into these discussions and into science classrooms. If you are a professor, you might find this post from CLEAR about syllabi worth a read.
What are the relationalities in and around your research, and how can you fulfill the obligations which these relationships provoke?
If you would like to become more involved in addressing environmental justice issues like these at Swarthmore, I recommend talking with professors like David Cohen and environmental studies professor Giovanna Di Chiro, as well as joining organizations like the Good Energy Collaborative (GEC) and the Campus Coalition Concerning Chester (C4).
