February 4, 2013

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Diversity in Science Carnival: Identity Edition

By Kate Clancy

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

I have a million thoughts swirling in my head after Science Online 2013, and a million more things I want to learn about and accomplish for Science Online 2014. I find reflection after these conferences a useful way to organize all those thoughts, and make an action plan for what I need to learn and accomplish.

If you feel the same way as me, you are already writing your first post-#scio13 blog posts. If you attended the identity session co-moderated by me (AKA Kate Kane) and Scicurious (AKA Batwoman), or attended a watch party or even just read the tweets, I imagine you have something thoughtful to contribute to this discussion. So please consider writing a post reacting to the session and submitting it to the carnival!

Alberto Roca of MinorityPostdoc.org has been running a fantastic Diversity in Science Carnival for some time now, and I'm pleased to say I finally get the privilege to host it here at Context and Variation. You can view past carnivals here for inspiration.

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Feel free to have your post simply be a reaction or recap of the session, or a tangential discussion that was triggered by the session. But if you want a little guidance, here are a few questions to get you started on your post:

  • Do you think about your online identity? Why or why not? And how has this changed for you (if it has) after the session?

  • How do you want to use identity in an intentional way in your future writing or outreach? In what ways will you hold back or share more as a particular storytelling or explanatory tool?

  • If you have privileged identities, what do you plan on doing with them? How can thinking about identity lead you to share more or less of yourself, do more ally work, find more like-minded people?

  • If you have identities that are underserved or underrepresented in science, what do you plan on doing with them? How can thinking about identity lead you to share more or less of yourself, do more ally work, find more like-minded people?

  • What are your goals for your science communication, writing or outreach, and how is thinking about identity going to help you achieve those goals?

The deadline for submission for this carnival is February 28th, 2013 at midnight wherever you live. The submission form is here. Please publicize and think about this topic. Perhaps the results of this carnival could lead to another moderated session for #scio14 the follows up on our shared thinking, and two of you could run the show.

I am Dr. Kate Clancy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. On top of being an academic, I am a mother, a wife, an athlete, a labor activist, a sister, and a daughter. My beautiful blog banner was made by Jacqueline Dillard. Context and variation together help us understand humans (and any other species) as complicated. But they also help to show us that biology is not immutable, that it does not define us from the moment of our birth. Rather, our environment pushes and pulls our genes into different reaction norms that help us predict behavior and physiology. But, as humans make our environments, we have the ability to change the very things that change us. We often have more control over our biology than we may think.

More by Kate Clancy

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