Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

WOMEN IN SCIENCE
Monthly Newsletter | March 2018 | Issue II

Winter Term Wrap-Up

As Winter term comes to a

close and Spring Break (!!)
inches closer, get your last
dose of WiS with our latest
news, featured scientist
interview, and mark your
calendars for our final event of
the term!

In This Issue

✦ Upcoming Events
OSU’s Dr. Sharyn Clough will speak on feminism and science at this
✦ News month’s Wake-Up Coffee. (Image credit: Mina Carson)

✦ Featured Scientist:
Geographer Dr. Shireen Upcoming Events
Hyrapiet

About WiS Wake-Up Coffee: The Feminist Scientist

Established in 2007, Women in
Science provides support and
resources for women in
science at Oregon State
University through organizing
social events and speaker
series.
While our organization is
called WOMEN in Science, we
value and welcome
membership and attendance
by ALL people. Please join us
no matter how you identify!
Thursday, March 8th from 10-11 am
@ Asian Pacific Cultural Center, OSU
Join OSU Women in Policy, OSU Women in Marine Sciences, and
Women in Science - Oregon State University on International
Women's Day / United Nations Day for Women's Rights and
International Peace for a talk and discussion with Dr. Sharyn
Clough on why feminism and science are better together and
increasing objectivity through bias detection.
Dr. Clough is a professor of Philosophy and Director of
Undergraduate Studies in the School of History, Philosophy, &
Religion. She is also the Director of Phronesis Lab and a Peace
Literacy Curriculum Coordinator.

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

About WiS Events

Outside the Lab
Speaker Series
OTL showcases leading
women in our community.
Our speakers incorporate
their scientific skills into
various professions including
policy, journalism, science
writing, industry, community
engagement, and non-profit
organizations.
Wake Up Coffee
Discussion Series
WiS designed a consciousness-
raising group to specifically
and mindfully create a space
for discussions around social
justice, diversity, identity, and
intersectional feminism. In
collaboration with Women in
Marine Science and Women in
Policy.
News
WiS and partners organize Sexual Misconduct
Awareness and Response Trainings
This February, Women in Science, Women in Marine Science, and
Women in Policy held two free Sexual Misconduct Awareness
Training workshops for members of the OSU community. The
four-hour workshop taught participants about healthy workplace
behavior, their rights as University students and staff, and how to
address sexual harassment and violence. Aili Johnston from
Willamette Public Health ran the training, and the participants
included graduate students, faculty, and staff.
In the two flagship workshops, sixty participants attended, and
the registration filled quickly. WiS and partnering organizations
hope that these workshops inspire OSU to offer additional
support in future years and continue to strive for a safe workplace
for all on campus.
WiS would like to thank its many sponsors who made the
workshop possible: SOURCE, Marine Studies Initiative, School
of Public Policy, Marine Resource Management, Women in
Science Portland, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Social Gatherings
WiS will hosts a social at least
each quarter so that we may
gather in an informal setting
Aili Johnston of Willamette Public Health. (Image credit: Iva Sokolovska)
to get to know one another
better and build our
community.

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

Featured Scientist: Dr. Shireen Hyrapiet

By Jenessa Duncombe

Shireen Hyrapiet (Image credit: OSU)

Shireen Hyrapiet is a professor of Geography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science at
OSU who focuses on developmental geography of the Global South. She was raised in Kolkata (Calcutta),
India, and received her bachelors in Geography at Loreto College at the University of Calcutta, India.
During her Ph.D. in Geography from Oklahoma State University, Hyrapiet studied hand-pulled rickshaws
in her home city and how political and economic forces shaped the decision to ban rickshaws in the
mid-2000’s. Hyrapiet sat down with WiS to unpack her research on rickshaws, her current research on
representation of non-Western people in National Geographic, and her advice for future young scientists.

WiS: What is the study of geography?

SH: Colloquially, most people describe geography as "what is where, and why is it there?"

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

For a lot us, geography is the relationship between human beings and place. What is our relationship with
where we live and where we work? And our relationship with the economy, with the political
environment, with production, consumption, and population? [Geography] can be all-encompassing.

What's your specialty?

Geography has two broad components: human geography and
physical geography. I started out as a physical geographer. I
morphed into a human geography focus. I incorporate the
For a lot us, geography is
research I've done into my teaching, and a lot of my work deals
with the question of justice. the relationship between

What caused the shift?

human beings and place

It was my curriculum. My [Ph.D.] research work was based in

Kolkata, India. There are these hand-pulled rickshaws that are a
mode of transportation that exists in my city in Kolkata. The year I started my Ph.D. program, the
government decided to ban this transportation option.

I lived around the [rickshaw wallahs (pullers)] and worked with them. They took me to school. I decided
to take on a Ph.D. project to look at how this particular mode of transport operates from an
environmental standpoint, and for social justice, and from a political ecology perspective.

Why were the rickshaws

banned?
(Image credit: Corvallis Change Makers)
The government wanted to ban
them, saying “These guys, they
don't look nice. They don't look
good for the city's image.” That's
what got me involved in looking
at the power dynamics that exist
in society between the people
that make the decisions and the
people who are affected by them.

Did the ban stay in effect?

It did. Theoretically, [rickshaw
wallahs] do not exist on paper in
the city. But it's been twelve
years since the ban, and they are
there. In reality, they exist.
There are political reasons why
they continue to exist despite
the ban on them.

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

Like what?
WiS Leadership They aren't just transportation. [Rickshaw wallahs] are very
deeply embedded in the communities that they work in. There is
Heather Fulton-Bennett

Co-President a sense of familiarity, a sense of security that people have with
them. For example, my brother and I had a contract with our
Lauren Zatkos
 local rickshaw puller. They would take us to school and pick us
Co-President up. They were our guardians since our parents worked full-time
Doni Schwalm
 jobs. Additionally, when the monsoons come to India, the city
Faculty Advisor streets get flooded. These are post-colonial cities that were set up
for populations of ten thousand but they are all bursting with ten
Emily Dziedzic
 million people! In Kolkata, where the hand-pulled rickshaws
Financial Officer
exist, they are the ones that keep the city moving, because they're
Leah Segui
 human powered. A lot of the mechanical transport comes to a
Financial Officer halt, but the hand-pulled rickshaws keep going.

Silke Bachhuber
 So, thinking about how they are still there? They are still there
Communications Officer
Marie Tosa

Communications Officer
Sophie Pierszalowski
 research. What did you learn about them?
Undergraduate Liaison
Jenessa Duncombe

Newsletter Editor-in-Chief
Contact Us
We’re always looking for new
ways to engage OSU’s
community. If you have an idea
for a future event, please reach
out to our leadership team. We
are excited about growing our
initiatives to achieve equity and
full participation for all women
in science.
Connect with Us
Subscribe to our ListServ
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because they are performing a function that can not easily be
replaced.
You interviewed many rickshaw wallahs for your
They are migrant men. They stay in the city for some part of the
year, but they actually live in neighboring agricultural areas. The
job gives them a lot of flexibility. We typically look at these jobs,
and we think they are so feudalistic. But that's not their opinion.
Many of them tried working as waiters in restaurants and other
things, and they did not have that degree of flexibility. They did
not have the level of income that they had pulling the rickshaw. A
lot of them are in it by choice. Of course, we have a social
hierarchy in the city. These aren't men that belong to middle
class; they are of a lower income community. But it is a choice
that they made to give
them a better option.
How did the lens of My brother and I had a
geography help you contract with our local
find those insights?
rickshaw puller. They would
I would not have been
able to develop those take us to school and pick us
ideas, like how place is up. They were our guardians.
made, or how different
groups derive meaning

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

from place. Or further, how we construct, deploy, and (Image credit: Twitter)
contest meaning. Using those frameworks helps us
understand how the rickshaw pullers themselves are a
product of politics and economics, and yet create a
niche for themselves within the city. That interaction
between humans and space was very critical.

How has this research been received?  

My work was actually mentioned in a Sunday New York
Times article.

Here at OSU, your time is dedicated to teaching.

What is your workload like?
My position requires me to teach about nine classes in
the year and my regular term includes teaching about
four classes. I am teaching approximately 300 students
every quarter, if not more. They are all in the geography and geospatial science major.

How does that affect your ability to do research?

Time is of the essence. I have very limited time. The demands of my job here are very high. I develop new
courses and things like that. But, I do have a project I’m currently working on.

What’s the project?

I'm working with my former advisor, and we are writing a chapter for a book looking at the
representation of non-Western people in National Geographic. We have gathered the data from 1990 to
2015. We've looked at all of the main featured stories and how people in African and Asian countries are
depicted. Right now, we're in our analysis stage.

How do you analyze the articles?

We're focusing entirely on images. We're not reading the article because most people open National
Geographic to look at the pictures.

Has this question been asked before?

Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins did a book called Reading National Geographic. They looked at the same
thing from the 1800’s until 1985. We've picked up from there.

Can you tell us what you've seen in the data so far?

We can already see general themes: the exoticization of non-Western people; the exoticization of African
and Asian people. When you look at people from African countries in National Geographic, they're always
heavily ornamented, or with a lot of body paint. ‘Tribal.’ We count the things we see in images, like body
paint, or the presence of carcasses or animals in photographs.

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Oregon State University Student Group March 6, 2018

National Geographic has received criticism in the past for

distorted portrayals of non-Western people. Have their
They say a picture speaks a practices improved over time?

thousand words, but what We’re finding that not much has changed. We even see it in the
2018 publications. You open up January's, and you get the same.
are the other things these
How does that relate to geography?
pictures aren't telling us?
This is cultural geography, a subset of human geography. We
look at how people are represented and depicted in space, and
how that ties into economic and policy decisions when we do
this sort of othering of people. Historically, colonialism has been based on the othering of people. It was
these perceptions we had about people that lived in tropical areas. They were lethargic and lazy, based on
representations. So this research is a subset of human geography, which is entirely cultural.

What has it been like to do this study?

It's interesting for me doing this study. People ask me, "Well, you're from India, how do you speak English
so well?" I say, “You know, the British were there 300 years!"

Why is this research necessary?

When you think about a magazine as influential as National Geographic, which has subscribers in the
millions, it becomes a messaging tool. It's a messaging device that they're bringing to people about other
places. People's mind and ideas about those places are being shaped based on [the magazine's] visual
language. We hope to highlight that and bring it out in a more critical way. To get people to rethink a
photograph. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, but what are the other things these pictures
aren't telling us?

What is your advice for young scientists?

The advice I would say is pretty much two words:
finish strong. I was never the model student in
India. This whole idea of being an academic was
cultivated in me. I now realize the power and
strength of having an education and of being an Follow more of 

educator.  It's transformative for me as an Hyrapiet’s work:
individual, and I hope that I am transforming the
minds of the people I'm teaching. For me, as a Twitter
woman and a person of color, and all those
Instagram
identities I fit into, sharing that perspective to
help with that transformation is my shining light. Google Scholar
This interview has been condensed and edited.