Racialized power is enacted through science
Read more about this topic from Dr. Rachel J. Watkins here to unlearn with me.
As a queer, white, female scientist, I have unique experiences in my career and in the field, but I’m always working to unlearn biased ideologies to replace them with decolonized methodologies. It is a lot of hard but very rewarding work. It is also never-ending, but sincerely inspiring.
I attended the Southeastern Biological Anthropology Interest Group 2026 hosted at NC State University, for the first time. I felt it pertinent to attend as a scientist working internationally, as an ethnoecologist, and as a scientist. The topics discussed and the research shared at this meeting were inspiring, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn from so many talented individuals in the field of bioanthropology.
I also think it is pertinent to address the role identity plays in my work as a scientist. As a woman in STEM, I struggle with the emotional toll of Impostor syndrome. This is something an overwhelming majority of women in academia face, particularly in scientific fields. This is exacerbated if the woman is also a person of color. But what is it about STEM that results in these inaccurate feelings of inadequacy? We don’t have direct causal links, but I can speak from my first-hand experience that it has to do with the culture of science and representation.
“Longitudinal studies should be considered to investigate the effects of impostorism on mental health, burnout, dropout consideration, and achievement.”
Representation matters. If you don’t see someone like you doing the job you are interested in, it is very easy not to imagine yourself capable of achieving that role in the future. As a white woman, I had plenty of role models from my childhood: Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, and Terri Irwin. But this isn’t the case for everyone.
The Culture of Science is also an interesting factor impacting a sense of belonging. This Culture of Science enacts racism through a variety of means. Many of you may have seen the film Hidden Figures about the African American women who powered NASA in the space race. The film features powerful scenes that show the everyday struggles of their experiences in Jim Crow America. The aggression and covert behaviors of society and their coworkers are telling of the racial inequity that was enacted through basic interactions like getting coffee or going to the restroom.
It is no secret that much of our medical research is primarily conducted using white men as the model, making the results difficult to apply to individuals of differing identities. However, the fact that many of my peers do not know of the Tuskegee Study is extremely shocking, and even more so that the claim “for the sake of better science” was used to justify the atrocities. This is one of the cases that led to the requirements that all researchers acquire “informed consent” from participants or human subjects. This has lasting impacts on society and its relationship with science.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has also been misused to justify the belief that certain races of people have inherent advantages and disadvantages related to their race, but many studies have found this is not factual. The science doesn’t support that claim. Darwin would be appalled. He credited much of his understanding of the natural world to his teacher, John Edmonstone. This goes back to representation as a form of empowering.
So what does this have to do with ecology?
As a scientist who studies the relationships between organisms and their environment, I have to consider the bias that inherently shapes the science that I do. Ecology and other “natural sciences” have been influenced by harmful ideologies like racism, sexism, etc. There are more studies every day that reveal how social inequities not only shape culture and human lives, but also the nature around us. To learn more, read this article and related works to discover how racist practices have influenced nature and who has access to it. This is significant to much of the work that environmental sciences and conservation biology do because of the policies that dictate land protection, land rights, and access to natural resources. We have much to learn about the topic of environmental racism.
This directly shapes and influences my research in Belize, particularly as an ethnoecologist trying to protect bees and the traditional knowledge the Maya people have possessed for managing these insects for over 3,000 years. Indigenous land rights, forest conservation, and biodiversity have gone hand-in-hand for generations, but how does racism affect the ecology I do? This is where the ‘ethno-’ plays a role. Humans are not separate from nature, and studying the natural world means studying how we impact it. Conservation is important. The way we perform conservation is also important. I highly recommend anyone who proudly claims to be a supporter of National Parks to read about the history of how to create these spaces, which first required the removal of Native Americans and the violence forced removal brings with it.
This directly impacts how we define “healthy ecosystems” and who can access these natural spaces. I face this in Belize as we learn more about how the Maya influenced the natural landscape thousands of years ago to cultivate particular plant communities or “forest gardens,” a concept that many indigenous peoples practiced globally. It is inherently racist to believe that land that was once occupied, and therefore managed, by indigenous peoples was “pristine wilderness,” as it erases their existence and relationship to the land. This is why conservation biology and other natural sciences must consider this as part of biodiversity conservation. We cannot ignore the history of the land and who shaped it if we want to truly protect the natural world that we love. This is why I am an ethnoecologist. I want to learn how we can ethically work to protect ecosystems while also realizing that humans have played, and continue to play, a vital role in them all over the globe.
To learn more about forest gardens, check out the work by Dr. Chelsea Geralda Armstrong & Dr. Anabel Ford
