ePODstemology

ePODstemology brings you cutting edge insights and analysis from early career researchers to help you cut through 21st century complexity. A major driver of that complexity is Algorithms - an increasingly ubiquitous yet remarkably opaque aspect of modern life, directing what you watch on television, who drives your taxi, what products you see when online shopping, and, increasingly who purchases your labour. This episode, regular host Dr Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick is joined by Dr Hatim Rahman, Assistant Professor of management and organisations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Hatim has a new book out studying the nature and effects of algorithmic management of high skilled workers trading via online platforms like Taskrabbit and Upwork. The Invisible Cage: How Algorithms Control Workers, available from University of California Press, traces how Algorithmic management perpetuates earlier trends in personal management like Taylorism and Weber’s Iron Cage of bureaucracy, while also significantly departing from these traditional modes. Hatim’s book also explores the regulatory, cultural, and institutional loopholes that algorithmic labour market platforms use to skirt existing labour protections and extract more value for capital, and considers how policymakers and citizens might respond to contemporary trends. 

Hatim’s website: 

https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/rahman_hatim.aspx 

Buy the book!

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520395541/inside-the-invisible-cage 

Weber’s iron cage of bureaucracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_cage 

Taylorism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management 

Fair Work Consumer Reports: 

https://fair.work/en/fw/publications/fairwork-uk-ratings-2023-a-call-for-transparency/ 

Some of you may have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of the Pacific Ocean roughly 1.6 million square kilometres in size that contains between 45 000 to 129 000 metrics tonnes of plastic waste, mostly in the form of microplastics – fingernail sized or smaller bits of the material. The patch has increased 10-fold in size each decade since 1945, and has a twin in the North Atlantic Garbage patch. Growing awareness of the patch and other environmental consequences of plastic waste, like seagull bellies full of plastic lids or turtles trapped in beer nets from six packs, has led to an increasing eco-consciousness around plastic packaging and a desire to use less of it. But as with many policy challenges, the situation can be more complex than a simple slogan like reduce, reuse, recycle. To explain these nuances, my guest this episode is Dr Jack Pickering, a freelance researcher who recently completed a postdoc on waste in the UK food system at City University London. Jack is a qualitative researcher with a PhD from the University of Cardiff in Wales in human geography. He has been working in interdisciplinary teams using mixed methods to understand the causes of waste, people’s beliefs about it, industry attitudes, and how to improve the situation.

Jack’s Linkedin Profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-pickering-6170a4209/? 

Jack’s paper on consumer attitudes to plastic packaging: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17530350.2023.2281398 

Mark Miodownik lab’s work on composting in the UK using citizen science:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.942724/full 

Sarah Greenwood, packaging expert:

https://scgreenwood.co.uk/ 

Mike Munger on recycling, especially of glass:

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/06/03/michael-c-munger/recycling-can-it-be-wrong-when-it-feels-so-right/ 

Lesley Henderson and team’s plastic mythbusters toolkit:

https://www.coastalpollutiontoolbox.org/ 

Max Liboiron’s website (Jack wanted to note that Max is an indigenous/first nations person and avoids using the word ‘Canada’ – an oversight on our part in the episode):

https://maxliboiron.com/

This podcast strives to bring forward new insights and innovative frameworks for understanding the world of the 21st century. Few things underscore just how radically different things are today from the 20th century than recent advances in artificial intelligence, where an AI ‘copilot’ on your smartphone can now perform myriad tasks for you in a few seconds. This episode’s guest is one of the people best placed globally to help us understand the implications of this new technology. He’s Ash Fontana, author with Penguin Random House of The AI First Company: How to Compete and Win With Artificial Intelligence. Ash has been working in the venture capital space with firms utilising machine learning applications for over a decade. He launched Angel List’s fundraising platform, which manages over $15 billion dollars, and was the first or largest investor in category defining companies like Canva, Kaggle, and Tractable. He remains at the forefront of thinking about how artificial intelligence can reshape economies and economies and societies for the better, and how regulators, investors, and other influential actors should approach the possibilities in the space. 

Ash's website:
https://ashfontana.com/

The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence:
https://www.theaifirstcompany.com/

David Watson's episode on ePODstemology about machine learning and the acceleration of discovery:
https://epodstemology.buzzsprout.com/1763534/10465344-machine-learning-and-the-acceleration-of-discovery

James Steele is Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Science at Solent University. He has extensive research and consultancy experience working with elite athletes across a range of sports, the general population across the lifespan, and both those who are healthy and diseased. He was a member of the Expert Working Group revising the CMO Physical Activity Guidelines for the United Kingdom and is a founding member of both the Strength and Conditioning Society, and the Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology. James joins regular host Dr Mark Fabian, assistant professor of public policy at the University of Warwick, to discuss the new hotness in exercise: low-dose workouts, as well as the challenges and peculiarities of conducting research in the sports space. This is the episode for everyone who thinks that maybe all those sports influencers out there aren't being entirely honest with the 'science'. 

Regular host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by episode guest Dr Stefania Fiorentino, senior teaching associate in planning, growth, and urban regeneration at Cambridge university’s department of land economy. Dr Fiorentino’s research is at the intersection of urban planning and local economic development, specifically how to innovate with respect to the inclusivity and effectiveness of urban regeneration strategies. Her research is extremely impact-oriented and is typically conducted in partnership with communities, developers, and local government. She has worked especially on coastal towns in the UK, and also has papers on densification strategies, industrial clusters, the geography of innovation, and regional inequalities. The conversation ranges from left behind places to gentrification and strategies for participatory governance.

Stefania’s webpage and papers:

https://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-stefania-fiorentino

Fiorentino, S., Glasmeier, A. K., Lobao, L., Martin, R., and Tyler, P. (2023) ‘Left behind places’: what are they and why do they matter?, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad044 

Fiorentino, S., Sielker, F., and Tomaney, J. (2023) Coastal towns as ‘left-behind places’: economy, environment and planning, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad045 

Fiorentino, S. (2023) Public-led shared workspaces and the intangible factors of urban regeneration in UK coastal towns, Urban, Planning and Transport Research, 11(1), DOI: 10.1080/21650020.2023.2260853 

Fiorentino et al. (2022) The future of the corporate office? Emerging trends in the post-Covid city, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 15(3), 597–614, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsac027

Regular host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by Dr Jacqui Lau, senior lecturer and discovery early career fellow (DECRA) at James Cook University in Australia. Jacqui is an environmental scientist employing interdisciplinary perspectives and mixed methods to understand how coastal communities in the pacific islands and Australia respond to climate change and environmental transformations. She has worked collaboratively in the Pacific, East and West Africa to examine ecosystem services, the impact of shocks like COVID-19 on coastal communities, perceptions of fairness about the customary management of coral reefs, and issues of equity (including gender) in conservation and climate change policy. Her work has been published in Nature Climate Change, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and World Development, among other top outlets. 

Jacqui’s website: https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/jacqueline.lau/ 

Ostrom, E. (2009). A general framework for analysing the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Nature, 325(5939): 419–422. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1172133 

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press. 

Sayer, A. (2011). Why things matter to people: Social science, values, and ethical life. Cambridge University Press. 

Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. & Ditto, P. (2013). Moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in Applied Experimental Philosophy, 47(1): 55–130. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124072367000024? 

See also Haidt, J. The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided on politics and religion. Penguin.

Shark’s Pacific and Dr Jess Cramp: https://sharkspacific.org/about/  

‘Copaganda’ is the name given to media that seeks to portray the police in a favourable, often distorted light. This includes fictional shows like Law and Order, CSI: Crime Scene Investigations, and Miami Vice, as well as reality-TV style shows that follow policy officers around as they go about their business. Emma Rackstraw’s research investigates how these shows affect the behaviour of the police, perceptions of the police among viewers, and attitudes towards the police in the communities where these shows take place. She joins regular ePODstemology host Dr Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick to discuss the implications of copaganda for criminal justice reform in the United States, the role that researchers play in skewing policy analysis for good or ill, and what changes are most urgently needed in US criminal justice policy.   

Emma’s website:

https://www.emmarackstraw.com/home

Emma’s job market paper: 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4592803 

“The Work” documentary (typically available via Amazon Prime):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5836866/ 

Public health approaches to policing: 

https://www.intensiveengagement.com/uploads/3/2/8/3/3283498/public_health_approaches.pdf 

Climate change is the biggest existential threat facing humanity. So why aren’t we doing more about it? This week’s guest is Dr Antonio Valentim, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s MacMillan Centre. His research seeks to answer two main questions 1) when and why do voters change their opinions and behaviours with respect to climate change? and 2) how do political incentives influence political elites’ behaviour on climate change? Who better to help us get some answer on how we can get more action on the climate policy front. If you’re interested in what protesters, citizens, political parties, and researchers can do to advance the climate transition, tune into this episode. 

Antonio’s website: https://antoniovalentim.github.io/

Antonio’s paper on Fridays for Future protests: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/m6dpg/ 

Antonio’s paper on the Green’s not fielding candidates in flood affected areas: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3960045 

Bolet, D., Green ,F., & Gonzalez-Eguino, M. (2023). How to get coal country to vote for climate policy: The effect of a ‘just transition agreement’ on Spanish election results. Forthcoming in American Political Science Review. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4394195 

While Kim Jong Un might disagreed, democracy is widely regarded as a universal value – it is a system of political organisation that enshrines the right to self-determination. Recent centuries have seen a wave of democratisation relative to historical trends, with democracies replacing dictatorships and other autocratic forms of governance in nations across the globe. Yet many of these democracies have also struggled to put down strong roots. Backsliding is common and consolidation arduous. A few spots of bad luck and a fledging democracy like Bangladesh or even Hungary can start to look fake. How can we promote the maturation of democracies? Samuel Amin from the University of Warwick joins regular host Dr Mark Fabian to share his insights from his PhD research on Ghana, especially the role of the national peace council there. Samuel emphasises the role of institutions in democratic consolidation, and that many of these institutions will be specific to local contexts rather than universally useful models that can be exported to other countries. The national peace council, for example, makes use of cultural narratives of Ghanaians as peaceful people, and norms of respecting religious and ethnic elders, to facilitate conflict resolution and respect for liberal-democratic institutions like courts and the electoral commission. The episode is optimistic and hopeful, with Samuel concluding with some positive thoughts about the future of democracy in West Africa.

Samuel’s student page at Warwick: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/anim/ 

Follow Sam on twitter: @animksam

Nick Cheeseman’s Democracy in Africa: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/democracy-in-africa/3FFB8B40059192D449B77A402ADC82A1 

Kate Baldwin’s book on traditional African chiefs in democratic africa: https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/paradox-traditional-chiefs-democratic-africa   

Dominique Burbidge’s papers on East African democracy: https://law.strathmore.edu/dr-dominic-burbidge/ 

Lisa Weeden’s book Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo5893513.html 

One way to think about what makes *social* science distinct is that it is trying to study subjects, not objects. Subjects have feelings, opinions, and values, which are often hard to observe and even harder to measure. Subjects’ behaviour is also often endogenous to being studied. For example, the ‘shy conservative’ phenomenon refers to the observation that people often lie about their right wing and traditionalist beliefs when responding to political polling. Finally, subjects are embedded in social structures that they both create and are created by. And those structures change rapidly! Talk about a hard challenge.  One thing holding social science back is the shallow understanding of the philosophy of social science among social scientists. Well ePODstemology strives to be different! This week’s guest is Dr Cristian Larroulet Philippi from the University of Cambridge, who joins regular host Dr Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick to discuss the challenges of measuring the human. A key theme of the episode is that ‘physics envy’ is a poor way for social to proceed, but perhaps seismology provides a better template?

Cristian’s webpage: https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/directory/larrouletphilippi 

Some background on Kitcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kitcher

More information on life satisfaction scales: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-021-00460-8 

Depression scales: https://www.apa.org/depression-guideline/assessment 

Inventing temperature (the history of thermometers) by Ha-Sook Chang: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-temperature-9780195337389

Eran Tal on measurement: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/measurement-science/