Book

Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean

Published on 1 January 2003

In this book, James Fairhead and Melissa Leach bring science to the heart of debates about globalisation, exploring the transformations in global science and its contrasting effects in Guinea, one of the world’s poorest countries, and Trinidad, a more prosperous, industrialised and urbanised island. The book focuses on environment, forestry and conservation sciences that are central to these countries and involve resources that many depend upon for their particular types of scientific enquiry and explores how ordinary people, the media and education engages with these. In particular it shows how science becomes part of the struggle over power, resources and legitimacy. The authors take a unique ethnographic perspective, linking approaches in anthropology, development and science studies. They address critically prominent debates in each, and explore opportunities for new forms of participation, public engagement and transformation in the social relations of science.

Authors

Melissa Leach

Emeritus Fellow

Publication details

published by
Cambridge University Press
authors
Fairhead, J and Leach, M
isbn
0 521 53566 2

Share

Related content