Speaker
Description
In recent years, astronomers are increasingly urged by policy makers and funders to anticipate the societal impact of their research by engaging in early-stage dialogues with society. In addition, recent citizen protests around astronomical facilities have stirred up discussion on the societal responsibility of astronomers. Most prominently, this was visible around the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii, where Native Hawaiians blocked access to the top of the mountain in order to prevent the construction of a new facility, the Thirty-Meter Telescope. These protests showed that science does not always inherently benefit society, although this is an assumption that scientists traditionally use when developing their research. There has been a lot of criticism on the way astronomers have dealt with the citizen protests in Hawaii, even from within the astronomy community. However, there is little research on how astronomers reflect on their societal responsibility and on their interactions with societal groups. In my research, I address this topic by using the Africa Millimeter Telescope (AMT) project as a case study. The AMT will be built in Namibia as part of the Event Horizon Telescope, a global network of radio telescopes that created the first image of a black hole in 2019. In this talk, I will discuss my first explorative analysis of how astronomers of the AMT enact upon their ‘societal responsibility’ and which dilemmas emerge for them between ‘doing good science’ and ‘being responsive’ to societal needs and wishes. I will also touch on differences I have found so far between the contexts of the AMT project and those of the Mauna Kea Observatories and other astronomical facilities around the world.
