The first stage of the project focused on establishing the structural conditions required to develop and deploy ARTEFACT’s widely transdisciplinary framework and achieve its overall objectives. The PI was joined by two postdoctoral researchers, specialised in the history of agricultural science and international studies respectively. The team developed research frameworks, networks, and activities to foster interdisciplinary conversations and initiate collaborative work. Two complementary sub-projects – ARTEFACT-Hybrid and ARTEFACT-Solidarity – were formulated by the postdoctoral researchers to investigate the micro-social dimension of knowledge-production in the field of plant genetics in (colonial) Britain, and the macro-social impact of global agrarian systems on global solidarity movements.
The second stage of the project focused on developing the methodological and conceptual framework, and on data collection through historical, archival, and ethnographic research. The third stage focused on the dissemination and communication of the project's ongoing and final results, including the PI's proposal for a new theorisation of globalisation that captures the entirety of humanity's cultural evolution.
Throughout the Action, the team gave a total of 55 presentations and talks, including 9 public and outreach interventions, and published 13 journal articles, 3 book chapters, 1 monograph, and 1 edited volume. The project also produced 60 online videos of academic events developed during the project. Other core outputs arising from the project, especially addressing its final results, are currently in preparation, including three monographs, an edited volume, and a book chapter.
The PI has also pursued ARTEFACT’s other objective of developing the transdisciplinary field of ‘Global Epistemics’ beyond the PI's specific research project. Following the launch of the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies in October 2018, the Centre’s website (www.gloknos.ac.uk) went live a few months later, followed by a blog, YouTube Channel, social media accounts, and periodic newsletters, but also a new academic book series on Global Epistemics with publisher Rowman & Littlefield. Over the duration of the Action, the Centre organised 16 lectures, 15 research seminars, 12 workshops and symposia, 10 book launches, 1 international conference, 2 summer schools, 3 webcast series, 1 docuseries, 1 online exhibition, 6 public engagement panels in Cambridge, as well as three conference sections at the European International Studies Association conferences in Prague, Sofia, and Potsdam. 6 international and interdisciplinary research groups were established, as well as 5 reading groups and 2 student networks.
