Editing Point of Beginning Mx. Science (section)

=The Liminal and the Ethical Space=

How do we determine who is a scientist, and who is not? How do we meet each other in "scientific" spaces? What are the markers of inclusion, where lie the boundaries, and how do we recognize each other?

At the Annual Science Meeting in Toronto in December 2022, I was not often immediately recognized as a researcher or a scientist. Some attendees thought I was a performing some kind of mythical creature. Others associated me with the "smurfs". The lack of categorically determinable signifyers prompted explorative questions like: are you wearing a costume? Is this a mask? Others were more explicit with their uncertainty: "I feel like I am walking into a minefield, how do I refer to you? Are you a persona? A character? I haven't kept up...", as if my presence was meant to perform a test of their politically correct use of language. 

For others, there was some relief, when they could mark me as an "insider" through my official conference nametag (One side displayed my name and institutional affiliation in print, the other side displayed "Mx. Science in my own handwriting). Such marking as an "insider", was often immediately followed up with questions of my underlying research, my methodology or "what" my presence was supposed to represent. When the request for a representative answer, or predetermined message about science or scientists, remained unaccommodated, the moment of relief was replaced with various degrees of discomfort.

Explaining that Mx. Science becomes meaningful within particular encounters like the one me and my conversation partner were engaging in, then sparked for some a curiosity to explore - often facilitated through the form of a follow-up interview after the conference. 

Each of these interviews was semi-structured around three questions, how did Mx. Science affect you? Do you think Mx. Science was representative of something? What do you think Mx. Science was practicing at the conference? The ensuing conversations indicated that Mx. Science performed a very different material-discursive practice for each person that engaged with them. Whether this practice related to how we engage with the "other" during our research, how we take up space in settler-Indigenous context, or what (unexamined) standards of representability we uphold in scientific spaces.

<div class="next_choice">You have encountered the presence of a "Great White Beast". Check out the landmark to consider how this figure haunts this Knowledge-Land-Scape.</div>

<span class="pop-up landmark link" data-page-title="The Great White Beast" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="landmark">[[The Great White Beast|Landmark: "The Great White Beast"]]</span>