Keith Douglass Warner

Agroecology as Participatory Science Emerging Alternatives to Technology Transfer Extension Practice

The discourses of agricultural extension reveal how actors represent their scientific activities and goals. The “transfer of technology” discourse developed with the professional U.S. extension service, reproducing its expert/lay power relations. Agroecology is emerging as a systems approach to preventing agricultural pollution. Its theoreticians argue that agroecology cannot be transferred like technology but must be extended through networks of participatory social learning. In California, hundreds of actors and dozens of institutions have cocreated agroecological partnerships using this alternative extension model. They have developed three alternative extension discourses to represent and explain their activities. Bruno Latours “circulatory system of science” model provides a superior theoretical framework for interpreting the participation and discourses of diverse actors in this extension practice.

Manipulating risk communication: Value predispositions shape public understandings of invasive species science in Hawaii.

Most invasive species control programs are routine, but a small number prompt public controversy. Local value predispositions shape lay perception of the relative risks of invasive species and efforts to control them. Because control efforts are generally led by government scientists, lay perceptions of invasive species science are colored by public judgment of government credibility. This article examines the proposed release of an insect for biological control of the invasive strawberry guava tree which threatens conservation of Hawaii’s forests. A local activist manipulated regulatory risk communication, appealed to local values, and persuaded some local members of the public and elected officials to oppose the insect release. This case illustrates how, in the absence of effective public engagement processes, routine scientific risk communication can be confounded by divergent knowledge taxonomies and perceptions of government hegemony.

An analysis of historical trends in classical biological control of arthropods suggests need for a new centralized database in the USA.

Abstract The documentation of biological control agents targeting arthropods in the United States has historically been subject to less regulation relative to weed biological control releases. This study reviews publicly available databases to track environmental releases of biological control agents targeting arthropods in the United States. It then presents available data for the states with the most releases between 1962 and 2005: Hawaii, California and Florida. These data indicate a clear decline in rates of introduction since 1982 or 1994, depending on the source. Existing record-keeping systems offer incomplete or inconsistent data for evaluation because they were designed with limited goals, attempt to capture excessive detail and are thus impractical, or are insufficiently resourced. Existing databases cannot be used to answer meaningful questions regarding non-target effects of introduced control agents. Current databases are inappropriately designed and insufficiently resourced to meet todays research and regulatory needs. We propose and describe a new database system for classical biological control of arthropods.

Fighting pathophobia: how to construct constructive public engagement with biocontrol for nature without augmenting public fears

Social networks of stakeholders are necessary to foster public support for classical biological control for nature. Drawing from recent scholarship in policy-relevant social science fields, this article describes two key concepts that can improve science communication strategies to support invasive species management and biocontrol: lay public risk perception, and public engagement with science. This article then recommends a fundamental communication strategy: construct public trust in invasive species control efforts using public engagement processes that link trustworthy messengers and appropriate messages with the public. It draws examples from biocontrol projects that used pathogens as the natural enemy of choice, but more broadly seeks to inform efforts to engage the public about the use of classical biocontrol agents in nature conservation efforts.

Ignatian Pedagogy for Social Entrepreneurship: Twelve Years Helping 500 Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs Validates the GSBI Methodology

In frontier economies, social entrepreneurship has emerged as a successful strategy to pursue sustainable development goals. By creatively blending business strategy, technology innovation and a deep understanding of customer need, social enterprises provide a pathway out of poverty, an alternative to private charity and government aid. Social entrepreneurs are developing strategies to make available distributed energy products, clean cooking and clean water technologies, and sustainable livelihoods. Social entrepreneurship is a pro-poor economic development strategy that promotes the common good. Many social entrepreneurs describe their work with terms like “calling” or “moral purpose” or “vocation,” harkening the emphasis in the Ignatian spiritual exercises on “making an election.”

Social Enterprise Work Placements: Connecting Competence to International Management Experience

In this chapter we show how international management work placements, particularly in social enterprises, can be structured to support management and leadership competencies in students across disciplines. First, we explore the current drivers for change in management education towards social benefit, and how universities are capitalizing on this trend by offering students from multiple disciplines opportunities for work placement abroad. Then, through examples from a successful programme, we discuss implications for course design, assess, indicate general issues and challenges, and provide a range of areas for further development. After that, we connect the programme to current international management competency literature — specifically Responsible Global Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship competencies. Further, we introduce three context-defined competencies that are university ‘mission-specific’— action research, vocational discernment, and failure analysis. These are mapped with existing competencies on a global framework adapted from the management literature. The result is a global competency structuring tool which programme planners and students can use to build, justify, adapt, and/or accredit their international management field experience, particularly in relation to problem solving for sustainability and social change.

Understanding public risk perception for the use of beneficial microorganisms.

322 (eds I. Sundh, A. Wilcks and M.S. Goettel) 22.