Lab Life film series

While scientific findings are usually the focus of knowledge mobilization, this project focuses on the how of research. Dr. Max Liboiron’s Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) is well-known for community-based science and dedication to equity, humility, and anticolonial relations in scientific practices. From how we determine author order in scientific papers (including what counts as knowledge and thus who counts as an author) to how we run a lab meeting (where humility and equity fundamentally change what is said and by whom), CLEAR’s methods are different than the average science lab. Most of these day-to-day methods do not appear in the methods sections of scientific papers, but in an internal lab book. Indeed, after countless requests from other researchers to learn how CLEAR’s daily operations work, we put our lab book online. It has been downloaded over 2,500 times (more than many of our articles!).

This Knowledge Mobilization project, Laboratory Life, is a film adaption of CLEAR’s lab book. It will show how our commitments to equity, humility, and anticolonialism look in the day to day life of the lab. The film will feature vignettes of three or four of our most sought-after methods, such as equity in author order, how to run a feminist lab meeting, open science hardware creation, citation politics, community peer review, and science under COVID. We will time the release of these short films with the publication of an updated lab book specifically updated and annotated for public dissemination.