Doctorial Dissertation Research: Classification Representation in the Sciences: the Epistemology and Ontology of Botanical Taxonomic Systems

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

General Audience Summary This dissertation project will combine international archival and qualitative fieldwork to better understand the evolution of taxonomic forms. The project begins with an examination of Pre-Linnaean bound manuscripts and Enlightenment-era printed texts. It culminates with a careful examination of the contemporary Catalogue of Life, a federated database containing the largest cache of taxonomic information of the known forms of life on Earth. One goal of the project is to show how taxonomy-disseminating technologies influence the construction and use of classification systems. Attention will be given to the Western-centric nature of these scientific systems of organization, and how one method of classification may not fit all of our global needs. The taxonomies that are the focus of this study arose from distinctly Western traditions, and evolved with their presuppositions engrained in their infrastructure. As a result, their taxonomic conventions can conflict with culturally and geographically local and endemic descriptive methods. Another goal of this study is to bring some of these cultural biases to light. By broadening discussion about these systems, new modes of cross-communicable and flexible taxonomic infrastructures between communities are more likely to occur. By bridging local biodiversity knowledge (endemic, underrepresented, cultural marginalized, citizen science, etc.) with larger scientific infrastructures, and by pooling our global knowledge resources in a more open, culturally attentive way, the chances of maintaining what natural biological species exist today increases exponentially. Technical Summary This project will contribute to our understanding of how the forms in which we disseminate taxonomic information influence the way that information is used and understood to fundamentally relate to our knowledge of the world, and to the way in which their ontological organization is influenced by inherited epistemologies from previous taxonomic systems. Additionally, given the widespread use of taxonomy databases in number of disciplines, this study can shed light on the multivariate uses of taxonomies and promote more inter-disciplinary collaboration and communication regarding the construction, organization, and flexibility of these infrastructures. Finally, by looking at scientific knowledge organization systems from an historical, information, and technical framework, we can learn much about how the contemporary world deals with, and can potentially solve, the often-incommensurate information structures embedded into the myriad of digital systems, software, and idiosyncratic computational platforms that are encountered daily, a problem assured to amplify in the future.