Hi, I'm Jonathan Wald (he/him), a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at McGill University. From 2017 to 2018, I worked with a team of climate scientists advising the government of the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. I’m interested in how traditional notions of science, politics, and ethics are undermined by the challenges of addressing the climate crisis from within bureaucratic institutions in the midst of rising authoritarianism. To highlight the moments of unthinkablility and creativity which emerged, I turn to horror writers and films which provide a range of techniques for presenting weirdness, surrealness, and experiences of limitation.
What I’m good at:
Teaching: My real passion in academia. I am interested in how to invite new audiences into conversations with science studies and anthropology and how our work addresses the concerns of potential students.
Theory: My undergraduate degree was in philosophy, but as I’ve moved into anthropology, I’ve become increasingly critical of of abstraction. This background is something I grapple with in my research and has allowed me to help colleagues by clarifying complex theory without jargon or “dumbing down.”
I’m hoping that this workshop will be a venue to meet other “early-career” science studies scholars and to think through our projects together.
Jonathan Wald, 9 August 2020, "Jonathan Wald Collaboration Bio", contributed by Jonathan Wald, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 9 August 2020, accessed 21 November 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/jonathan-wald-collaboration-bio
Critical Commentary
This is my collaboration bio as of 9 August, 2020. I created this artifact to share with fellow participants in advance of the 6S pre-conference workshop. The full essay of collaboration bios can be found here.