Steven B. Emery

Maximizing the Policy Impacts of Public Engagement: A European Study

There is a lack of published evidence which demonstrates the impacts of public engagement (PE) in science and technology policy. This might represent the failure of PE to achieve policy impacts or indicate a lack of effective procedures for discerning the uptake by policy makers of PE-derived outputs. While efforts have been made to identify and categorize different types of policy impact, research has rarely attempted to link policy impact with PE procedures, political procedures, or the connections between them. In this article, we propose a simple conceptual model to capture this information, based on semistructured interviews with both policy makers and PE practitioners. A range of criteria are identified to increase the policy impact of PE. The role of PE practitioners in realizing impacts through their interactions with policy makers in the informal “in-between” spaces of public engagement is emphasized. However, the potential contradictions between the pursuit of policy impacts and the more traditional conceptualizations of PE effectiveness are discussed. The main barrier to the identification of policy impacts from PE may lie within policy processes themselves. Political institutions have responsibility to establish formalized procedures for monitoring the uptake and use of evidence from PE in their decision-making processes.

Can a Species Be a Person?: A Trope and Its Entanglements in the Anthropocene Era

The notion that an animal species is comparable with a human person is unusual but significant in North Atlantic societies. We analyze this trope to make a case for rhetoric culture theory as a powerful form of anthropological analysis. The “species is person” trope has been woven with other tropes to make moral and cosmological arguments in the present geosocial era of environmental crisis. The trope stands against two others in North Atlantic societies, tropes that are themselves at odds: (1) other animal species are not persons but are means to our ends, and (2) each individual animal of a species is equivalent to an individual human person and so are ends in themselves. The “species is person” trope has been used to evoke the characteristically North Atlantic notion of sacred personhood to support action on behalf of human-distant species such as river-dwelling mollusks, species that unlike pandas or otters are not “charismatic.” The use of the trope both to alter understandings and to initiate commitments to action demonstrates its effectiveness as reasoning but also the importance of this style of analysis.

A Review of the Use of Pictograms for Communicating Pesticide Hazards and Safety Instructions: Implications for EU Policy

ABSTRACT The literature was reviewed to assess the understanding and interpretation of pictograms used in pesticide exposure risk communication, and to assess the results in the context of the new European Union (EU) regulatory context for the sustainable use of pesticides. The results indicate that the understanding of pictograms used on pesticide labels by workers and operators is generally low. Standardized approaches, contrary to their claims, are not easily understandable, culturally neutral, or universally understood. Although there is scope for the greater use of pictograms in training, it is important to stress that they should never replace the full and frequent verbal training in a language understood by the trainee. They can, however, be used to complement training, facilitate recall, and encourage compliance. While the policy affecting the handling, labeling, and use of pesticides is applied across the EU, there has been no analysis of the different types of pictograms that have been used in the European context, nor the different ways that they are employed (e.g., on labels, on signs, during training), nor understanding of their meaning by European workers and operators. Furthermore, the implications for risk with residents and bystanders are less clear than for workers and operators.

Can a Species Be a Person

The notion that an animal species is comparable with a human person is unusual but significant in North Atlantic societies. We analyze this trope to make a case for rhetoric culture theory as a powerful form of anthropological analysis. The “species is person” trope has been woven with other tropes to make moral and cosmological arguments in the present geosocial era of environmental crisis. The trope stands against two others in North Atlantic societies, tropes that are themselves at odds: (1) other animal species are not persons but are means to our ends, and (2) each individual animal of a species is equivalent to an individual human person and so are ends in themselves. The “species is person” trope has been used to evoke the characteristically North Atlantic notion of sacred personhood to support action on behalf of human-distant species such as river-dwelling mollusks, species that unlike pandas or otters are not “charismatic.” The use of the trope both to alter understandings and to initiate commitments to action demonstrates its effectiveness as reasoning but also the importance of this style of analysis.

From lived experience to political representation: Rhetoric and landscape in the North York Moors

Approaches to landscape are characterized by an unresolved distinction between political representation on the one hand and phenomenology on the other. In this paper we address this distinction by demonstrating how those living in close quarters with landscape (farmers) translate their lived experience into political representation. Through the use of rhetoric culture theory we show how farmers use narrative and symbolism to stake their political claims. Moreover, we argue that a focus on lived experience should not deprive our ethnographic encounters of political significance. On the contrary, we demonstrate how by focusing on the lived experience of farmers we can better appreciate how they are motivated to act politically, have the skills to act politically, and gain political legitimacy in the eyes of others. We argue that whilst phenomenological approaches provide fertile grounds for political analysis, the majority of such research remains politically empty. We demonstrate how, contrary to much of the literature, farmers can and do aesthetically fix the landscape for rhetorical effect, and how narrative as rhetorical representation always already serves to politicize time. We suggest rhetoric, therefore, as an appropriate conceptual tool for mediating and advancing our understanding of the relationship between landscape experience and landscape politics.