Date and time

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:30 – 18:00 GMT

Location

UCL, London WC1E 6BT United Kingdom. Register for full details.

As natural scientists, we theorize about queering our research through the practices and materialities of normal science. Drs. Max Liboiron and Alex Bond will discuss theorizing and practicing queering science from two different but overlapping perspectives as scientists in plastic pollution research and conservation. We work in fields where locating, defining, and quantifying harm are key activities. From the overdetermination of mortality to express harm to the way outliers are understood statistically, we use an ethic and sense of queering to guide our methods—and often have to develop new methods to change the path of scientific inquiry.

D?r Max Liboiron

Dr. Max Liboiron is a Professor in Geography at Memorial University, where they direct the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR). CLEAR develops feminist and anti-colonial methodologies to study marine plastic pollution. Liboiron is author of Pollution is Colonialism (Duke University Press, 2021) and co-author of Discard Studies: Systems, Wasting, and Power (MIT Press, 2022).

Dr Alex Bond

Dr Alex Bond (he/him) is the Principal Curator and Curator in Charge of Birds at the Natural History Museum in London, where he runs the UK node of the Adrift Lab, which researches anthropogenic impacts on birds, islands, and the marine environment, focusing on plastics. He is also an Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, and the Environmental Research Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands, as well as the Ornithologist-in-Residence at St Nicholas’ Church in Leicester. He is the 2020 Royal Society Athena Prize medallist for running LGBTQ+ STEM, and the recipient of the 2022 British Trust for Ornithology’s Marsh Award for Ornithology.

This event is organised by qUCL and the Sarah Parker Remond Centre.

Drs. Max Liboiron (left) and Alex Bond (right) work with the LADI trawl in the Ranger Bight Brook near Makkovik, Nunatsiavut. August 2023. Photo by Lauren Pilgrim.