cultural | Ecology for the Masses

Tag Archives: cultural

Exploring Ecofeminism

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Sam Perrin 3 comments

Image Credit: Peter Trimming, CC BY-SA 2.0

Long story short, when I was in the final year of my Masters I wrote an essay on ecofeminism. My social science teacher Rapti Siriwardane-se Zoysa said that we should turn it into a piece for their working journal, and we did. But if you’ve ever opened a sociology paper before as a non social scientist, you’ll know that those things can be DENSE.

Opinions

Celine Frere: Gender, Representation, and Cultural Shifts in Ecology

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Sam Perrin 4 comments

The lack of senior female researchers can be daunting to younger female scientists, but openness and honesty combined with a willingness to strive for higher positions can bring about a cultural shift in ecology, says Dr. Celine Frere. Image Credit: Pxhere, CC0 1.0, Image Cropped

During my recent trip to the Sunshine Coast in Australia, I sat down with Dr. Celine Frere and talked about her work with charismatic species, which you can read about here. However, Celine is also one of Australia’s Superstars of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), an initiative of Science & Technology Australia designed to raise the profile of female scientists in Australia. With this in mind, I had a chat with Celine about gender equality in ecology, and the advice she’d give to young female researchers.

The Forefront

Ian Winfield: Advancing Scientific Communication Through Cultural Anthropology

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Sam Perrin 3 comments

Ian Winfield, a freshwater ecologist, has been using methods rooted in cultural anthropology to conserve freshwater ecosystems in northern England

Image Credit: Ian Winfield, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

Scientific methods of communication with the public have been evolving ever since the first Universities were opened in the 1200s. Recent times have seen communication evolve in step with the digital age. But given our lack of progress in key areas in which scientists have long known we face problems, such as climate change, biodiversity and ocean pollution, one wonders if we’re doing our job well enough.

Ian Winfield is a freshwater ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Lancaster, UK. Ian has spent years working in Northern England in an effort to conserve its populations of the Arctic charr, a common environmentally-demanding fish which has seen many of its populations in the polar regions come under increasing pressure. I took the chance to sit down with Ian at the recent International Charr Symposium in Duluth, Minnesota, and we discussed his experiences using cultural anthropology to encourage ecological action outside of the scientific community.