Dr Claire Waterton

PhD Supervision Interests

I welcome applications from prospective students in all areas of my research, including:Environment-society relations, especially using the theoretical resources of Science and Technology Studies (STS);
The making of environmental knowledge;The politics of environmental knowledge;Environmental knowledge, policy and collective politics;
STS and the making and politics of databases;
Social studies of classifications;
Knowledge, practices and biodiversity;Barcoding of Life (BOLI) and shifting cultures of taxonomy;The 'case study' in STS;A place for critique within STS;

Current Teaching

Undergraduate

• SOCL 100: Environment and Society
• SOCL 220: Critical Studies of the Environment

Masters

• SOCL527: Ecology, Conservation and Culture
• SOCL 931 Researching Technoscience
• SOCL 521: Environment and Culture

PhD students

At present I co-teach 4 PhD students

• Susan Starling. PhD on The Real Death of Nature: The Badiouian event of thinking nature as empty, riven, infinite; and the subject to truth of biological taxonomy and systematics
• Akpo Enieke. PhD on Oil Spills and rural livelihoods: A case study of the Niger Delta Region.
• Niklas Hartmann. PhD on Ecosystem Services ? studying how a concept transforms ecological theory, research practice and human-environment relations. 
• Joel Hacking. PhD on The Future of Natural History Societies in England

Research Interests

Research interests

• Sociology/anthropology/cultural studies of science
• The making and politicsof scientific knowledge, especially that relating tonature/the environment
• Scientific and other forms of expertise
• The making of classifications
• Public perceptions of environmental issues and environmental risks
• The relationship of scientific knowledge to contempotary environmental policymaking in the UK, Europe and on a global level
• Analysis of deliberative mechanisms and participatory processes
• Performativityof method in STS
• The role of the science studies researcher in studying contemporary science and policymaking
• Science studies and the managment of the rural environment - see new project proposal

Research projects and funding

• 2010 (August-December)Understanding and Acting in Loweswater: Transferable Insights. Defra Funded. PI Claire Waterton Researchers are Ken Bell, Judith Tsouvalis, Lisa Norton, Stephen Maberly, Nigel Watson.
• 2007-2010 'Understanding and Acting in Loweswater: A Community Approach to Catchment Management' RELU funded. PI Claire Waterton. Researchers are Ken Bell, Judith Tsouvalis, Lisa Norton, Stephen Maberly, Nigel Watson.
• 2006-2009 'Taxonomy at a Crossroads: Science, Publics and Policy in Biodiversity'. ESRC funded. PIs Claire Waterton, Brain Wynne, and Johannes Vogel (NHM))
• ESRC (2005-6) databases, Naturalists and the Global Biodiversity Convention, PI with Rebecca Ellis (PI) and Maria Pacha (IEPPP)
• ESRC (2002-2005) 'Amateurs as Experts: harnessing new networks for biodiversity' (in collaboration with the Natural History Museum, London. Other PIs are Robin Grove-White and Johannes Vogel)
• ESRC Science and Society Programme (2005-6) 'Databases, Naturalists and the Global Biodiversity Convention'. Other PI Rebecca Ellis.
• DEFRA, January-July 2004 'Non-Indigenous Species: Exploring their Meanings in Human and Social Terms'. With Jeffrey Waage, Imperial College, London.
• Rural Environment and Land Use Programme (RELU), July- December 2004, 'Understanding Loweswater: a Study to Generate new Understandings of Ecological, Economic and Social Interactions in a Lake District Catchment'. PI with Steve Maberly (PI, CEH, Lancaster), Lisa Norton (CEH, Lancaster) and Jake Morris (IEPPP).

Additional Information

Career

April 2007 - present: Senior Lecturer in Environment and Society, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

January 2006- April 2007 - Lecturer in Environment and Society, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

October 2000 - 2006: Lecturer in Environment and Social Policy, Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy (IEPPP), Lancaster University. This lectureship was funded through HEFCE and was intended to create bridges between the natural and the social sciences at Lancaster University and through extended research and policy networks

1992-2000 Researcher within the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University

March 1998 - Sept. 2000: Applicant, co-ordinator and researcher of ESRC-funded project 'Scientists Reflect on Science: How Scientists Encounter the Environment-Risk Domain'.

Dec. 1997 - Mar. 1998: Researcher on Forestry Commission-funded project 'The Recreational uses of Woods and Forests in Contemporary Britain'.

Apr. 1994 - Dec. 1997: Researcher on an ESRC-funded project 'Databases and European Environmental Policy', as part of CSEC's 'Science, Culture and the Environment' Programme, Lancaster University.

Oct. 1993 - Apr. 1994: Researcher on WWF-funded project on the European CORINE programme (Co-Ordination of Information on the Environment).

June - Oct. 1993: Researcher on international social science project, 'Social Learning in the Management of Global Environmental Risks', co-ordinated by Professor Bill Clarke at Harvard University, USA.

Oct. 1992 - June 1993: Researcher at CSEC, Lancaster University, on Cumbria County Council-funded project 'Public Perceptions and the Nuclear Industry in West Cumbria'.

Awards and Membership

Awards

Claire Watertonreceived a fellowship in 2005 from the US Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC) and the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to spend two months at the Centre for Science Technology and Society, Santa Clara University, California, USA. Here she made links with Professor Geoff Bowker, the Director of the Centre, Susan Leigh Starr and other science studies scholars and attended a two week workshop on Values in Design. The purpose of the visit was to carry out theoretical work on contemporary databases which would feed into the ESRC Science in Society project 'Databases, Naturalists and the Global Biodiversity Convention'.

Membership

I was elected a member of the Council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)in January 2009.

• Care in and for Policy

  01/03/2013 →
  This research programme aims to develop a network of researchers to explore contemporary, urgent concerns about policy as failing, marginalising ‘good’ practices and causing harm. While ‘policy ... Read more»

• Taxonomy at a Crossroads: Science, Policy and Publics in Biodiversity

  01/07/2006 → 30/06/2009
  "Taxonomy at a Crossroads: Science, Publics and Policy in Biodiversity" is a 3 year interdisciplinary research project which brings together social and natural scientists to explore contemporary innov ... Read more»

• Understanding and Acting within Loweswater: A Community Approach to Catchment Management

  01/06/2006 → 31/08/2010
  Details to follow shortly. Project in collaboration with the Department of Geography and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. View project proposal (PDF): http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/doc_library ... Read more»

• PhD visitors welcome at CSEC

  01/02/2011
  Two new visitors, currentlystudying for a PhD, are adding to the diversity of scholarship on the social study of environmental issues at CSEC. Both are interested in the approaches of Science and Tech ... Read more»

• CSEC's research is highlighted in BBC news

  24/11/2010
  Claire Waterton (CSEC, Department of Sociology) has been working with Judith Tsouvalis (CSEC, Sociology), Lisa Norton and Stepehn Maberly (Centre for Hydrology and Ecology, CEH) Nigel Watson (Geograph ... Read more»

• Visitors to CSEC

  25/05/2010
  CSEC is hosting several visitors in 2010. Dr. Katja Neves Graca from Corcordia University, Montreal,camein February to speak to the topic of Nature and Capital ( http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/ ... Read more»

• Loweswater Care Project researchers respond to the Environment Agency's Water Framework Direct

  14/05/2010
  Loweswater Care Project researchers [1]respond to the Environment Agency's UK Water Framework Directive Draft River Basin Management Plans, stressing the need for the EA to take a stronger and clear ... Read more»

• Performing Environmental Change, Oslo, May 2010

  11/05/2010
  Claire Waterton is an invited speaker at the workshop: "Performing environmental change: the politics of social science methods," which will be hosted by Kultrans and is sponsored by Kultrans and the ... Read more»

• 2nd Phase of Loweswater Research

  27/04/2010
  CSEC's research with Lancaster Environment Centre and CEH Lancaster in north Cumbria is set to enter a second phase. The project Understanding and Acting in Loweswater is to be continued through fundi ... Read more»

• Activism and research combine over nuclear new-build within Centre for Study of Environment and Change (CSEC)

  22/02/2010
  CSEC researchers and colleagues within Geography, Cesagen, and Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates submitted their response to thegovernment's public consultation on the draft National Policy Statemen ... Read more»