Art-Science Collaborations, Bodies, and Environments
Lead Research Organisation:
Aberystwyth University
Department Name: Inst of Geography and Earth Sciences
Abstract
The proposed AHRC-NSF Collaborative Funding Opportunity between Leigh Payne (University of Oxford) and Kathryn Sikkink (University of Minnesota) aims to develop an empirically-tested theory of transitional justice (i.e., human rights trials, truth commissions, and amnesties) to explain its impact on human rights and democracy. It also strives to develop a corresponding set of policy recommendations to achieve those political goals.
The collaborators' prior research qualifies them for this project. Each has published widely on violence, human rights, and democratization. They recently formed separate research teams to develop large-N, cross-national data bases on transitional justice mechanisms. Both teams confirmed for the first time that transitional justice has a positive impact on human rights and democracy. Contradictory findings from their research, however, have motivated them to collaborate to develop a new project that further improves understanding of transitional justice.
The proposed project will construct a new data set that merges their existing data, adds newly collected and refined data on transitional justice mechanisms, and employs a mixed-method approach to explain the success of transitional justice in achieving its political objectives.
Quantitative research, utilizing propensity scores and matching techniques, will allow the researchers to make inferences from the large-N data set while qualitative research, specifically fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs QCA), process-tracing, and the case study method, enables the team to identify combinations of conditions and/or multiple causal pathways for positive or negative effects on democracy and human rights.
Intellectual Merit.
The proposed project will build the first empirically-tested theory of when, why, and how transitional justice achieves human rights and democracy goals. It will derive and test assumptions from four theoretical approaches: enforcement and deterrence, norms and socialization, rule of law, and accountability with stability. The first three focus on the role of trials in bringing positive political change, a mechanism identified by both research teams as crucial to transitional justice success.
The fourth approach examines how combinations of mechanisms (i.e., trials and amnesties or trials, amnesties, and truth commissions), findings from Payne research, achieve these positive results. Based on these theoretical approaches and previous findings, the collaborative team has created a research design that will allow them to make an important theoretical contribution to the study of transitional justice, human rights, and democratization. They will present their findings at international scholarly conferences and publish scholarly articles to advance academic debate in an under-theorised field.
Broader Impacts.
First, the study will advance transitional justice policy. The project identifies the specific types and combinations of mechanisms and contextual factors (i.e., political and economic conditions, judicial institutions, and political agency) that enhance the likelihood of success of transitional justice.
The researchers will produce a policy blueprint and present their findings to policy-makers at conferences and meetings, disseminate them to relevant organisations, and make them publicly available on their website.
The collaborative project emerges from a creative method for resolving contradictory findings in the researchers' previous work. Rather than using their different findings to carve out separate and competing projects, the researchers have chosen to collaborate to achieve important theoretical and policy goals.
Second, the collaborators will build an institutional partnership between the Oxford Transitional Justice Research program and the University of Minnesota's Transitional Justice Research Collaborative, in which both researchers play leading roles, to maintain the data set and encourage future research initiatives.
Third, the project includes training and professionalization dimensions. The original members of the research teams will remain involved in the collaboration as consultants, contributing and enhancing their skills, and co-authoring scholarly papers. The advanced quantitative (e.g., propensity scores, matching techniques) and qualitative (e.g., fs QCA, process-tracing, case study) methodologies incorporated into this joint project provide new training for the consultants and the new Oxford and Minnesota graduate student members of the research teams.
The collaborators' prior research qualifies them for this project. Each has published widely on violence, human rights, and democratization. They recently formed separate research teams to develop large-N, cross-national data bases on transitional justice mechanisms. Both teams confirmed for the first time that transitional justice has a positive impact on human rights and democracy. Contradictory findings from their research, however, have motivated them to collaborate to develop a new project that further improves understanding of transitional justice.
The proposed project will construct a new data set that merges their existing data, adds newly collected and refined data on transitional justice mechanisms, and employs a mixed-method approach to explain the success of transitional justice in achieving its political objectives.
Quantitative research, utilizing propensity scores and matching techniques, will allow the researchers to make inferences from the large-N data set while qualitative research, specifically fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs QCA), process-tracing, and the case study method, enables the team to identify combinations of conditions and/or multiple causal pathways for positive or negative effects on democracy and human rights.
Intellectual Merit.
The proposed project will build the first empirically-tested theory of when, why, and how transitional justice achieves human rights and democracy goals. It will derive and test assumptions from four theoretical approaches: enforcement and deterrence, norms and socialization, rule of law, and accountability with stability. The first three focus on the role of trials in bringing positive political change, a mechanism identified by both research teams as crucial to transitional justice success.
The fourth approach examines how combinations of mechanisms (i.e., trials and amnesties or trials, amnesties, and truth commissions), findings from Payne research, achieve these positive results. Based on these theoretical approaches and previous findings, the collaborative team has created a research design that will allow them to make an important theoretical contribution to the study of transitional justice, human rights, and democratization. They will present their findings at international scholarly conferences and publish scholarly articles to advance academic debate in an under-theorised field.
Broader Impacts.
First, the study will advance transitional justice policy. The project identifies the specific types and combinations of mechanisms and contextual factors (i.e., political and economic conditions, judicial institutions, and political agency) that enhance the likelihood of success of transitional justice.
The researchers will produce a policy blueprint and present their findings to policy-makers at conferences and meetings, disseminate them to relevant organisations, and make them publicly available on their website.
The collaborative project emerges from a creative method for resolving contradictory findings in the researchers' previous work. Rather than using their different findings to carve out separate and competing projects, the researchers have chosen to collaborate to achieve important theoretical and policy goals.
Second, the collaborators will build an institutional partnership between the Oxford Transitional Justice Research program and the University of Minnesota's Transitional Justice Research Collaborative, in which both researchers play leading roles, to maintain the data set and encourage future research initiatives.
Third, the project includes training and professionalization dimensions. The original members of the research teams will remain involved in the collaboration as consultants, contributing and enhancing their skills, and co-authoring scholarly papers. The advanced quantitative (e.g., propensity scores, matching techniques) and qualitative (e.g., fs QCA, process-tracing, case study) methodologies incorporated into this joint project provide new training for the consultants and the new Oxford and Minnesota graduate student members of the research teams.
People |
ORCID iD |
Deborah Dixon (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Dixon D
(2014)
The tactile topologies of Contagion
in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Dixon D
(2013)
Of human birds and living rocks Remaking aesthetics for post-human worlds
in Dialogues in Human Geography
Dixon D
(2011)
Art: Blurring the boundaries
in Nature
Dixon D
(2012)
Wonder-full geomorphology Sublime aesthetics and the place of art
in Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment
Dixon D
(2011)
Climate change: Notes from a cold climate
in Nature
Title | Curating the Cosmos |
Description | This was a curated online exhibition, involving over 20 artists, and linked to the 2013 Assoc of American Geogprahers conference in Los Angeles. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2013 |
Impact | Exhibition facilitated debate on role of art in creatign scientific knowledge, and vice versa. Also used as a model for what a conference might consist of: see http://news.aag.org/2014/08/the-more-than-conference-conference/ |
URL | http://curatingthecosmos.com |
Description | Why do scientists want to work with artists? And why do artists want to engage science? In a multi-sited study of contemporary collaborative projects involving diverse groups of scientists and artists we sought to understand the institutional, political, epistemic and technological forces that both allow for these interactions to emerge and that shape their development and wider impact. We have focused on detailed descriptions and analyses of the day-to-day activities, as well as the products of, such collaborations. The core work of the project was the development of ethnographies of a number of sites around the world. These ranged from top agenda-setting art/science groups to emerging, experimental ones. These included: Arts Catalyst, London; Swiss Artists-in-Labs; SymbioticA, Australia; Cape Farewell, UK; Advanced Visualisation Lab, US; and several emerging environmental arts practitioners, including Frances Whitehead and Lillian Ball. The project findings fall into several categories. 1.Artistic Case Studies In the course of our research we have generated a series of publications that explore artistic case studies from our sites, focusing on particular works and practices. These explore the contribution art can make to our understanding of bodies and environments, and the scientific discourses that frame these. These have focused, for example, on art as a form of environmental remediation; art as a means of imagining the nano; and sensing environments. 2. Reanimating Aesthetics as a way of engaging with complex problems. Papers and an edited book have been produced that explore the crucial role of aesthetics not simply as an artistic practice, but a scientific one also, in framing the public's apprehension of complex problems such as climate change. Two curated exhibitions, one 'virtual,' have taken these ideas forward to the public. 3. Promoting Inter-disciplinarity A key theme in our publications, but also our research practice, has been the promotion, but also critical assessment of, an inter-disciplinarity. We have worked as a group across various subfields in geography, and have made extensive connections with both artistic and scientific groups in the process. We are currently working on some 'best practice' commentaries in light of this work. 4. Science Communication and Engagement While all of our case study sites involved much more than new ways to communicate scientific practice, one of the unexpected findings of our of project has been the receptiveness of scientific venues to introducing these issues. We have produced, and continue to do so, a number of reviews for Science, Nature and Nature Climate Change on the changing practices of science venues, from museums to laboratories and botanic gardens, and their integration of art. |
Exploitation Route | We are in the early stages of assessing and disseminating key findings. However, we can refer to the following: First and foremost, the ethnographic case studies that we have produced, and are publishing on, provide interested groups (artists, scientists, funding bodies, and institutional bodies) insight into the day-to-day factors that shape successful art/science collaborations, as well as the range of problems encountered in the process. As these groups further push an inter-disciplinarity, these studies offer a valuable source of information. Second, the research undertaken has itself fostered a range of new networks, which are currently being nurtured in the form of new grant applications, studentships and research initiatives (see outputs). Third, and in methodological terms, we have adapted methods of data collections and invented others in order to get a grasp of 'art/science' phenomena and worldviews; these do not fit readily into accepted techniques. Our reworked Q sort method, now bespoke for visual as well as verbal literacy, is of particular interest to researchers working on inter-disciplinary projects. |
Sectors | Creative Economy,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
URL | http://artscience.arizona.edu/ |
Description | AHRC Training Grant (3) |
Amount | £163,512 (GBP) |
Funding ID | AH/J009377/1 |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2012 |
End | 12/2015 |
Description | Cultural Value |
Amount | £31,943 (GBP) |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2013 |
End | 05/2014 |
Description | Life Science Aesthetics |
Amount | £8,833 (GBP) |
Organisation | European Commission |
Department | European Social Fund |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 09/2011 |
End | 06/2012 |
Description | Visualising Extreme Landscapes |
Amount | £8,833 (GBP) |
Organisation | European Commission |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 09/2011 |
End | 06/2012 |
Description | Working with the Land |
Amount | £8,833 (GBP) |
Organisation | European Commission |
Department | European Social Fund |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 09/2011 |
End | 06/2012 |
Description | Performance, Environment and Ecology |
Organisation | Aberystwyth University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This is a collaborative speaker series emerging from the grant. It is co-sponsored by the Institute of Geography and Earth Science, and the Theatre, Film and TV Department, Aberystwyth University, brining in artists involved in varios art/science projects to talk and provide workshops. |
Collaborator Contribution | This wa sa co-sponsored series between the Inst of Geogrpahy and Earth Sciences, and the Theatre, Film and TV Department, Aberystwyth University. |
Impact | Facilitated co-supervision of PhD students between geogrpahy and performance, and augmented their training in mixed methodologies. |
Start Year | 2011 |
Description | A Wonder-full Geomorphology |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Facilitated networkign with art/science networks nationally Formed basis for submission to Progressin Physical Geography. Sparke dinterest in one member to udnertake a PhD in sart/science at Glasgow university with co-PI Deborah Dixon |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Art/Science Collaborations |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | An exhibition organised as part of the University of Aberystwyth's Open Day. Facilitaed discussion with member so fth epublic re trends in art and science |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Curating the Cosmos 1 and 2 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Brought together arts practitioners, curators and geographers to discuss art/science. Linked to a widely viewed curated art exhibition |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
Description | Living Rocks: Of tiny sounds and evolutionary alternatives |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Sparked debate on science in the Anthropocene Helped form basis for submission to Dialogues in Human Geography |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | The Diplomacy of Urban Ecological Art |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Sparked discussionon art as a 'solution to complex urban pollution problems Formed basis of submission to Gender, Place and Culture |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | The Smell of the Moon |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Sparked debate on role of site in sensory arts production formed basis for submission to Cultural Geogrpahies |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
Description | The Visualising Subject |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Sparked discussionon role of aesthetics in geovisualisation Formed basis for submission to the Annals of the Assoc of American Geographers |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Topological Geogrpahies |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Facilitated debate on spatial imaginaries across geogrpahic subfields. Helped form basis for sumission to Transactions of the Inst of British Geographers |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |