Selen Eren

I am a PhD researcher in the field of Science, Technology and Society in the department of Knowledge Infrastructures at Campus Frsylân, University of Groningen. My background is in Sociology and Philosophy of Science and Technology. I am overall interested in how science, society and technology co-shape each other.

My PhD project is a part of a bigger project called Knowledge Infrastructures for Sustainability, and supervised by Anne Beaulieu, and Andrej Zwitter. The project investigates (1) how bird ecologists create knowledge claims in contemporary knowledge infrastructures where the emerging and long-standing data collection and analysis techniques are used at the same time, (2) as well as how to contribute to such knowledge infrastructures by tackling credibility issues found in the literature and observed during collaborations with ecologists. The main research question the projects aims to answer is then the following: What types of interactions, practices, and framings are needed for knowledge infrastructures (KI) to ensure the quality of scientific knowledge claims (i.e., scientific credibility) while acknowledging the shaping role that citizens, tools, models, data, and even animals play in generating such claims?

I am collaborating with the Team Piersma to have a better sense of how bird ecologists create credible knowledge claims in practice. I conduct participatory observations during their meetings and fieldwork, as well as interviews when it is needed. I also join some of their conferences, and courses. This collaboration also aims to help the team in producing scientific knowledge claims that are credible in a broader sense accounting for multiple stakeholders needed to create such claims.

Here are the titles of some presentations/guest lectures I gave during my research:

• A critical perspective on data and credibility in the context of conservation ecology. In MSc course Flyway Ecology at the Faculty of Science and Engineering in the University of Groningen, the Netherlands
• Creating Publics: Science-society relations. In BSc course The Birds and the Bees: Knowledge Infrastructures for monitoring sustainability at Campus Frsylan in the University of Groningen, the Netherlands

• Epistemic value of care practices: From birds in the hand to the data in the bank. In Nordic Science and Technology Conference, held virtually at Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark

• Enacting a non-positivist credibility in big ecology In EASST/4S Conference, held virtually/in Prague, Czech Republic