Katy Wilkinson

Infectious diseases of animals and plants : an interdisciplinary approach

Animal and plant diseases pose a serious and continuing threat to food security, food safety, national economies, biodiversity and the rural environment. New challenges, including climate change, regulatory developments, changes in the geographical concentration and size of livestock holdings, and increasing trade make this an appropriate time to assess the state of knowledge about the impact that diseases have and the ways in which they are managed and controlled. In this paper, the case is explored for an interdisciplinary approach to studying the management of infectious animal and plant diseases. Reframing the key issues through incorporating both social and natural science research can provide a holistic understanding of disease and increase the policy relevance and impact of research. Finally, in setting out the papers in this Theme Issue, a picture of current and future animal and plant disease threats is presented.

Why social scientists should engage with natural scientists

It has become part of the mantra of contemporary science policy that the resolution of besetting problems calls for the active engagement of a wide range of sciences. The paper reviews some of the key challenges for those striving for a more impactful social science by engaging strategically with natural scientists. It argues that effective engagement depends upon overcoming basic assumptions that have structured past interactions: particularly, the casting of social science in an end-of-pipe role in relation to scientific and technological developments. These structurings arise from epistemological assumptions about the underlying permanence of the natural world and the role of science in uncovering its fundamental order and properties. While the impermanence of the social world has always put the social sciences on shakier foundations, twenty-first century concerns about the instability of the natural world pose different epistemological assumptions that summon a more equal, immediate and intense interaction between field and intervention oriented social and natural scientists. The paper examines a major research programme that has exemplified these alternative epistemological assumptions. Drawing on a survey of researchers and other sources it seeks to draw out the lessons for social/natural science cross-disciplinary engagement.

Organised Chaos: An Interpretive Approach to Evidence‐Based Policy Making in Defra

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been heavily criticised for its handling of disease outbreaks in recent years by analysts who compare the conduct of officials with the model of evidence-based policy making, finding fault in their use of advisers or decision-making processes. In this article, I take an alternative approach to policy analysis, based on ethnographic research in the department. I explore the day-to-day interactions between scientific experts and policy makers in Defra to understand why policy making takes the form it does and how scientists negotiate their position within this process. I argue that policy making in Defra is organised by socially constructed narratives that help officials and advisers to make sense of their roles in the policy-making process. Drawing on insights from organisational sociology, I analyse the ways in which Defra officials talk about their responsibilities and understanding of their roles. These narratives act as ‘modes of ordering’ that bring about organisational realities by structuring their relationships, influencing the way they use scientific advice and consequently affecting policy outcomes. I outline three modes of ordering that can be identified in Defra – rationalism, bureaucracy and expediency – and demonstrate that they correspond to three complementary images of evidence-based policy making.

The changing role of veterinary expertise in the food chain

This paper analyses how the changing governance of animal health has impacted upon veterinary expertise and its role in providing public health benefits. It argues that the social sciences can play an important role in understanding the nature of these changes, but also that their ideas and methods are, in part, responsible for them. The paper begins by examining how veterinary expertise came to be crucial to the regulation of the food chain in the twentieth century. The relationship between the veterinary profession and the state proved mutually beneficial, allowing the state to address the problems of animal health, and the veterinary profession to become identified as central to public health and food supply. However, this relationship has been gradually eroded by the application of neoliberal management techniques to the governance of animal health. This paper traces the impact of these techniques that have caused widespread unease within and beyond the veterinary profession about the consequences for its role in maintaining the public good of animal health. In conclusion, this paper suggests that the development of the social sciences in relation to animal health could contribute more helpfully to further changes in veterinary expertise.

Neoliberal reform and the veterinary profession

In the second of a series of articles reflecting on issues raised in the 2009 Lowe report on veterinary expertise in food animal production, Gareth Enticott, Philip Lowe and Katy Wilkinson discuss how extension of the political ideology known as neoliberalism is refashioning the veterinary profession in relation to food and farming, in both the UK and elsewhere When Animal Health announced its intention last year to put bovine TB testing out to competitive tender, the uproar within the veterinary profession was hardly surprising. Rural vets, who in many areas of the UK have come to rely on the revenue from such testing, expressed alarm at the threat to the viability of their businesses. They warned of a deterioration not only in rural veterinary services but also in national biosecurity, due to the loss of passive surveillance and of a flexible workforce willing to step in at a moments notice to help in the event of a national emergency such as the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Yet the proposal itself was no surprise either, nor are the changes it could bring to veterinary work. Over the past several years, government has been seeking to renegotiate the terms on which it engages with veterinarians in the farming and food sectors, as part of its …

Visualising human-animal-technology relations: fieldnotes, still photography and digital video on the robotic dairy farm

This paper explores the potential for developing less anthropocentric approaches to researching human-nonhuman relations through visual ethnography, critically examining the potential for conceptualising nonhuman animals as participants. Arguing that method in “more-than-human geography” and animal studies has developed at a slower pace than theory, it proposes visual approaches as a means through which to foreground the behaviour and actions of nonhuman animals in social research. This challenges underlying anthropocentric assumptions of visual ethnography, questioning the meaning of “participation” in visual research. The paper presents a comparison of approaches used in studying practices of robotic milking on dairy farms in the UK. Specifically, it compares the qualities of field notes, still photography and digital video in focusing on particular sites, moments and movements of robotic milking. While visual approaches are not a panacea for more-than-human research, we suggest that they do offer a means through which nonhumans might “speak for themselves” in social research. Rather than presenting definitive accounts, the inclusion of video in such work not only illustrates arguments but also leaves the actions of nonhumans open to further interpretation; the centrality of the researcher is destabilised.This paper explores the potential for less anthropocentric approaches to researching humannonhuman relations through visual ethnography, critically examining the conceptualisation of nonhuman animals as participants. Arguing that method in animal studies has developed more slowly than theory, it proposes visual approaches as a way of foregrounding nonhuman animals’ behaviour and actions in “social” research. Questioning the meaning of “participation”, this challenges underlying anthropocentric assumptions of visual ethnography. The paper presents a comparison of approaches used in studying sites, moments and movements of robotic milking on UK dairy farms: field notes, still photography and digital video. While visual approaches are not a panacea for more-than-human research, we suggest that they offer a means through which nonhumans might “speak for themselves”. Rather than presenting definitive accounts, including video in such work also leaves the actions of nonhumans open to further interpretation, destabilising the centrality of the researcher.