About the Project

Farming is said to be undergoing a digital “revolution.” For example, new tractors are now fitted with sensors that passively collect data on the farm, on farm equipment and even farmers. This data is aggregated with those from other farms into “big data” which are used in machine learning to advise farmers on when to spray, seed and harvest.

I am part of a small but growing international group of critical social scientists who study the societal impacts of digitization in agriculture. My work focuses on the potential that big data and the digital tools for collecting, aggregating and analyzing them is poised to reproduce long-standing and inequitable relationships of power in the agri-food sector. I have several projects on this area and the goal for all of them is to leverage rural community-grounded methods (e.g. participatory technology assessments, focus groups, field observation) that take me across Canada in order to shed light on farmer engagement with emergent technologies, specifically engagement among small and diverse farmers. I ask questions like: What types of big data are currently in use by farmers, governments and corporations in the agri-food system? What kinds of knowledge about food, farming and farmers are big data helping to shape? What power relationships are generated, reinforced or disrupted by the application of big data in the agri-food sector? A secondary goal is to bring farmer feedback directly to federal policy-makers.

Publications

• "Look twice at the digital agricultural revolution" (Kelly Bronson and Irena Knezevic, Policy Options)
• "Big Data, Big Agriculture — with Kelly Bronson" (ISSP Disruption Discovered podcast episode)

Speaking Engagements

• Content to come

About the Project

On 17 October 2013, a conflict over shale gas development came to a head when members of the Elsipogtog First Nation (a Mi’kmaq people) and U.S.-based SWN Corporation confronted each other at the town of Rexton, New Brunswick. Those on the ground in this high-profile conflict argue that it was as much about historical injustice and unsettled land claims as it is about resource development.

My research projects on the topic of impact assessment focus on injustice, recognizing that it is at the centre of environmental governance disputes and the societal disruptions raised by development. Moreover, my research is premised on a justice framework that has three dimensions—procedural, distributional, and cultural—and it addresses a gap in environmental governance scholarship and practice around the third dimension of justice. My ultimate objective is practical: to outline what a justice-oriented approach to meaningful participation in large industrial development would entail for impact review processes in Canada and around the world.

Publications

"Beyond participation and distribution: a scoping review to advance a comprehensive justice framework for impact assessment" (IAAC report)

Speaking Engagements

• Content to come

About the Project

I have several collaborative team projects looking at algorithms in-the-making (their design and designers) and in-the-wild (how they get used, by whom, and for what purposes). My work in this area attempts to forward a truly interdisciplinary approach that combines law, ethics and sociology to algorithmic assessment. Indeed, these projects are not just particular assessments of individual algorithms but they all attempt to advance the normative position that technologies cannot just be considered in relation to whether they comply with the law, but also how they fit with broader social values and justice.

Publications

• Kelly Bronson interview at CSPC 

Speaking Engagements

• Content to come

About the Project

The health and environmental applications of AI and big data have yet to receive adequate scholarly attention, and policy makers need research support to build evidence-based public policy in this area. AI will impact the health of humans through radical changes to how we deliver and manage health care across the continuum of care, from surgical settings to long-term care homes. Much will change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Building upon this disrupter of change, there is the potential for AI to be infused into health care systems at a far faster rate than first thought possible. As well, AI will impact environmental health--notably through data-driven sustainability improvements in food production, which is currently one of the most significant contributors to global climate change.

To tackle those challenges, the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and the Institute for Science, Society and Policy bring together leading scholars at the University of Ottawa to support public policy makers on the benefits and challenges of AI related to the health of humans and non-human environments with the overall goal of contributing to human flourishing into the 21st century. 

Housed at the University of Ottawa’s AI + Society Initiative, the new Project on AI for Healthy Humans and Environment will adopt a problem-based approach and will address issues through transdisciplinary research, and include industry, community and government partners as part of the research team. The project aims at developing tools and a framework to support policy-makers in Canada and abroad in implementing “smart” changes–ones which support AI-powered healthcare and sustainable food production.