Ralph Matthews

Experts’ understanding of the public: knowledge control in a risk controversy

This paper reverses the common emphasis in the literature on public understanding of science by examining “experts’ understanding of the public.” This research uses the case of aquaculture in Canada, a highly contested mode of production that has divided the scientific community and public opinion. Using a survey of 300 aquaculture experts in Canada, we examine three dimensions of experts’ understanding of public “contributions” to this controversy. These are (1) stakeholder participation in aquaculture regulation and policy, (2) the media as an interpreter and communicator of expert claims, and (3) the knowledge and values basis of general public opinion. We find that experts’ views on lay knowledge and participation in the debate swing from strongly positive to strongly negative. Using quantitative and qualitative data from the survey, we argue that these swings in experts’ views of the public coincide with issues of control over knowledge. Experts on all sides of the aquaculture controversy are markedly open to incorporating lay knowledge into scientific practices (a situation where expert control over knowledge is retained), but are highly critical of lay “consumption” of expert claims (a situation where expert control over knowledge is lost).

Social Capital, Labour Markets, and Job-Finding in Urban and Rural Regions: comparing paths to employment in prosperous cities and stressed rural communities in Canada

This paper compares paths to employment (job-finding) in prosperous cities and economically-stressed rural communities in Canada. Since the pioneering work of Mark Granovetter (1973; 1974), sociologists have investigated the role of social capital in job-finding (specifically, the use of strong and weak social ties to find out about employment opportunities). To date, however, there have been few direct comparisons of job-finding in urban and rural settings (see Lindsay et al., 2005; Wahba and Zenou, 2005). Using data from two major surveys and a qualitative interview project, we uncover several important differences in urban and rural paths to employment. First, we find that both strong and weak ties are used more frequently by rural residents to find a job, while city-dwellers rely more often on formal or impersonal means. Second, we find much stronger evidence of differentiation within rural regions. Long-time rural residents are much more likely to use strong and weak ties to find employment than are newcomers. However, rural residents who used weak ties as paths to employment have significantly lower incomes. None of these patterns are evident in the cities. Together, these findings lead us to conclude that job-finding in rural settings is strongly affected by constraints – in the labour market and in social capital resources – that are not present in cities.

Brain matters: from environmental ethics to environmental neuroethics.

The ways in which humans affect and are affected by their environments have been studied from many different perspectives over the past decades. However, it was not until the 1970s that the discussion of the ethical relationship between humankind and the environment formalized as an academic discipline with the emergence of environmental ethics. A few decades later, environmental health emerged as a discipline focused on the assessment and regulation of environmental factors that affect living beings. Our goal here is to begin a discussion specifically about the impact of modern environmental change on biomedical and social understandings of brain and mental health, and to align this with ethical considerations. We refer to this focus as Environmental Neuroethics, offer a case study to illustrate key themes and issues, and conclude by offering a five-tier framework as a starting point of analysis.

Climate Change and Institutional Capacity in an ‘Arctic Gateway’ City: A CAVIAR Case Study of Whitehorse

Throughout the north, the majority of residents live in sub-Arctic administrative centres south of the Arctic Circle. These ‘Arctic Gateways’ are critical administrative and service centres through which pass most goods and services to and from the Arctic. Although not Arctic communities in the strict sense, they still must deal with issues of environmental change such as melting permafrost, and threats from flooding and forest fires. While doing so, they also must cope with expanding economic development, tourism, and growing demands for services throughout the Arctic region. Findings are presented from a CAVIAR case study of adaption and vulnerability of one such ‘Arctic Gateway’ carried out in partnership with the staff and Council of the City of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The study is based on extensive, in-depth interviews with elected officials and senior and operational staff of the City of Whitehorse, as well as with representatives of the Yukon Territory Government (YTG), First Nations, inter-governmental bodies, and NGOs responsible for administrative and resource management throughout southern Yukon. We explore key decision processes, institutional linkages and relationships within the civic government structure of the City of Whitehorse as well as with other jurisdictions and levels of government, including two First Nations upon whose traditional territory the City is situated. We find that existing adaptive strategies regarding climate change reside frequently in the processes of decision-making, planning and organizational culture as they are applied in the context of other changes facing the City and Yukon Territory. Thus, we explore the processes by which policies, decisions and adaptive responses take shape in both routine and uncommon or surprise situations around key areas of civic concern related to infrastructure, public health and safety, land-use planning, emergency preparedness and the environment. The case study is linked to the City’s ongoing Integrated Community Sustainability Planning process which provides the temporal basis for exploration of future changes and exposure-sensitivities as defined by various governance institutions. The focus on the application of governance as process and context provides a glimpse of the potential (institutional) capacity of Whitehorse to manage and cope with complex social-ecological changes taking place in the north now and in the future.

Where are we going

As medicine and dentistry have grown in complexity, so has the nature of the relationship between the two sciences. With increasing financial pressures and declining in-takes to dental schools, Robin Matthews argues that both disciplines would gain through a closer, more coordinated liaison

Canada and the United States: Alternate Realities?

ABSTRACT The Editors of The Sociological Quarterly invited the author to reflect on how Canada and the USA may differ, particularly as the American Sociological Association is meeting in Canada in August 2017. This article argues that, while the USA and Canada are in many ways alike, the fundamental ‘social contract’, defined here as the obligation of the state to its citizens, differs in Canada from that in the USA. It also focuses on the emphasis on accommodation of cultural differences and trust in governance institutions that are strongly held dimensions of Canadian society. The analysis uses the perspective of “possessive individualism”, articulated first by Canadian political scientist C. B. MacPherson, as a guide to understand the way that individual rights versus individual responsibilities are often understood differently in the two countries.

Ethical Issues in Policy Research: The Investigation of Community Resettlement in Newfoundland

Though many researchers regularly undertake to evaluate government policy programs, few attempts are made to evaluate the process and consequences of this policy research. This paper derives from the writers own experience in studying a government program of community resettlement in rural Newfoundland. As a result of this research, I am able to consider the issues of objectivity and value freedom in relation to the particular problems which I encountered. Based on this experience, this paper examines I) the relationship of the researcher to those funding him and to those he is studying, 2) the responsibility of the researcher to relate his scientific knowledge to the definition of policy goals, and 3) the extent to which value freedom and objectivity are possible when studying and assessing value based programs. My experience leads me to argue that policy researchers should go beyond evaluating the consequences of policy programs, and directly assess the policy goals, despite the methodological problems involved.