Dr. Margaret Swift
  • home
  • about
  • cv & publications
  • research =
    • ✭ simulating african elephant movements on a fenced landscape ✭
    • mapping waterholes in africa's largest conservation area
    • antelope behaviors on a changing landscape
  • outreach =
    • public talks
    • lesson plans & tutorials
    • teaching statement
    • nsf grfp advice
    • science writing
    • skype a scientist
  • perspectives =
    • those who made me
    • where i live & work
    • decolonization
    • land-grab universities
    • going beyond land acknowledgement
    • asexuality, imposter syndrome, and belonging
    • reading lists
  • art =
    • short stories
    • poetry
    • photography
    • portraits
  • blog

reading (etc) list


Below is an inexhaustive and ever-expanding list of papers and articles that I have found helpful throughout my science journey. 
  • ​Decolonization
  • Land Acknowledgement and Action
  • Eugenics & Statistics
  • Intersectionality in Feminism and Environmentalism
  • Discrimination and anti-racism in science
  • Advice on being a scientist
 
Decolonization
​Decolonization is the practice of "actively undoing [colonial] systems and ways of thinking" (Trisos et al 2021). Decolonization is not a metaphor or a stand-in for other diversity, equity, and inclusion work (Tuck & Yang 2012); it specifically centers on acknowledging and dismantling the history, present, and future of settler colonialism in our own scientific work. Decolonization cannot only happen "in the mind"; it must be an action in the world to unwork the harms of settler colonialism. That being said, these are some good places to start:
  • Decolonization is not a metaphor. Tuck & Yang 2012, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society.
  •  Decoloniality and anti-oppressive practices for a more ethical ecology. Trisos, Auerbach, & Katti 2021, Nature Ecology & Evolution.
  • Decolonizing geoscience requires more than equity and inclusion. Libioron 2021, Nature Geosciences.
  • Replacing “parachute science” with “global science” in ecology and conservation biology. Asase et al 2022. Conservation Science and Practice.
  • Decolonizing place-names: Strategic imperative for preserving indigenous cartography in post-colonial Africa. Nna 2015, African Journal of History and Culture.
  • The Global South. Dados & Connell 2012, Contexts.
 
Land Acknowledgement and Action
See this page for more information on going beyond land acknowledgements.
  • What Good is a Land Acknowledgement, Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy.
  • Sicangu CDC guide on land acknowledgement. [link]
  • Native Governance Center’s guide [link] and explainer video [link] on land acknowledgements, as well as their 2019 Indigenous Peoples’ Day panel [video].
 
Eugenics & Statistics
When I first began studying ecology, I had no idea how much both ecology and statistics are intertwined with the history of the eugenics movement in the United States.
  • Madison Grant and the Eugenics History of Biodiversity Conservation. Sarah Nason 2018 Rapid Ecology.
  • How Eugenics Shaped Statistics: Exposing the damned lies of three science pioneers. Aubrey Clayton 2020 Nautilus.
  • Statistics, Eugenics, and Me: A personal reckoning of my failure to acknowledge the origins of my field.​​Raphael Sonabend 2021 Medium.​
 
Intersectionality in Feminism and Environmentalism
Intersectionality, first coined by Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, describes the need to not only address specific marginalized pieces of a person's identity (specifically Black womanhood) but to understand that the combination of these two or more identities compound to create a unique situation of marginalization, violence, and oppression.
  • Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. Crenshaw 1989, The University of Chicago Legal Forum.
  • The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet.​​ Leah Thomas 2022.
  • Intersectional Experiences of Black South African Female Doctoral Students in STEM: Participation, Success and Retention. Idahosa & Mkhize 2021, Agenda.
  • Doing the ‘gender dance’: Black women professionals negotiating gender, race, work and family in post-apartheid South Africa. Jaga, Arabandi, Bagraim, and Mdlongwa 2018, Community, Work & Family.
  • Increasing diversity to save biodiversity: Rising to the challenge and supporting Indonesian women in conservation. ​Poor, Imron, Novalina, Shaffer, and Mullinax 2021, Conservation Science and Practice.
 
Discrimination and anti-racism
In October 2022, the publication Nature published a special issue entitled Racism: Overcoming science's toxic legacy. Here are some pieces that stood out to me (an evolving list):
  • Computer science has a racism problem: these researchers want to fix it. Newsome 2022, Nature
Other resources:
  • The climate crisis is a crisis of inequality. Pande 2023, Science eLetters.
  • The sting of sizeism in the scientific workplace. Arnold 2022, Nature.
 
Advice on being a scientist
  • Giving Shape to a Meaningful and Fulfilling Career in Science: Some No-Nonsense Advice Kamini Singha, 2023
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Home
About
Contact
​Margaret Swift
Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow
Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
Cornell University
​Ithaca, New York, USA
  • home
  • about
  • cv & publications
  • research =
    • ✭ simulating african elephant movements on a fenced landscape ✭
    • mapping waterholes in africa's largest conservation area
    • antelope behaviors on a changing landscape
  • outreach =
    • public talks
    • lesson plans & tutorials
    • teaching statement
    • nsf grfp advice
    • science writing
    • skype a scientist
  • perspectives =
    • those who made me
    • where i live & work
    • decolonization
    • land-grab universities
    • going beyond land acknowledgement
    • asexuality, imposter syndrome, and belonging
    • reading lists
  • art =
    • short stories
    • poetry
    • photography
    • portraits
  • blog