“Is it possible to create a science that is truly human?”

https://freerads.org/2017/04/04/zapatistas-reimagine-science-as-tool-of-resistance/#fn3

I saw an article that I thought might be of interest to this class.

“With all of the damage that the capitalists have done to the people through their misuse of science, scientifically can you create a science that is truly human in order to avoid falling into a science that is inhuman, and if it is possible create a truly human science, who can create it?”

I have been seeing a lot of discussion re: the whiteness of science, and how the academy has transformed science and protected it from anti-oppression critiques that point out its circulation of hegemony. I'm thinking about the time I saw a newsletter from the Anthropology department that advertised a "business anthropology" career (not studying business, studying people for business), to which I replied and questioned the ethics of this department advertising such a job nonchalantly. I was a newly-declared Anthropology major, which made the confrontation all the more intimidating, I thought that maybe I was mis-reading the situation or I was "too much of a beginner" in the discipline to actually have an opinion yet. I then received a response about how they're "just trying to make sure all opportunities are available" as if racist and exploitative business practices are simply another "opportunity".  I've come to hate this department after being bombarded with nonstop apolitical "neutralities" and "objectivities", the academy can sometimes be incredibly violent. For a school of thought that is grounded in the human experience, it is a little funny how often power is erased in said experiences. I'm also thinking right now of the recent Dr. Katz mess that is resurfacing, with the physics professor reiterating the long legacy of gendered and racialized hierarchies in the science. A friend of mine wrote this poem: https://www.instagram.com/p/BSj2BRjjYeE/

This question (and the other questions the Zapatistas asked of scientists) are essential for scientists to ask regularly to themselves, at lab meetings, to their mentors, to their mentees, in classrooms, and at conferences. Science that ignores these questions is not apolitical; it is oppressive.

Rather than suggesting that science and social justice can be compatible or that science might be political, this conference demands a future where science is used as a tool of resistance. Las ConCiencias refuted the assumptions that science and activism are insoluble and that science is neutral. By leaving these assumptions behind, Las ConCiencias created a space to build a new science, that is affirmatively community-based, just, and anti-capitalist.

I am slowly coming around to seeing sites of resistance within the academy, how I (and many, many other people) can co-opt access to hierarchy in order to produce knowledges of resistance--unapologetically political ideas that confront and create tension within the academy to expose its underpinnings of whiteness.