“Human Dimensions of Oceans: From a Sociological Perspective” blog series is live on FATHOM.

CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE BLOG BY OCEAN NEXUS

The first thing is to remember to always take the dual nature of science – its explanatory power as well as its very human foundations – into account. Science will always reflect the social conditions of production, from the agendas of its owners to the time and place it was created to the technologies and strategies then available for researchers to much else. We should therefore be weary of ideas that accept our own time, place, economies, and culture as “natural,” for these conditions change.
If science speaks for itself, then powerful forces will invariably try to justify inequality and injustice on scientific grounds. Rather, it is important to understand that science is done by people living in societies. As environmental sociologists have long argued, we must therefore understand society if we are to understand science.