Using Science for Relationality and Justice Building
April 2025
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this document is to make clear our understanding of and relation to neuroscience and the scientific method more generally, and the way we use it to ground our work. This document shows an expansive definition of science and affirms that it is a tool that all Peoples and Beings have practiced in some form through time, and it does not exist solely as a western invention. It is important to delineate what science is and our relationship to it as a method and tool of inquiry and observation. Science sits within and is shaped by cultures, narratives, histories and power relations. Without doubt, science has been misused for harm and to explain and defend abuses of power. This writing is to demonstrate that it is the way science has been used that has created and contributed to harm rather than the processes of the scientific method itself.
The position and relation to neuroscience that we highlight here is not just an intellectual exercise, it is the culmination of at least eight years of walking from Centric Lab as a neuroscience lab that took science out of the lab and rooted into justice- and people-led science on the ground. This is how we currently understand our journey so far.
WHAT IS ‘SCIENTIFIC METHOD’?
The official definition of science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the phenomena around us through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. We can break down this definition into further cognitive compartments. Systematic means that there is structure, process, and methodology to a specific set of tasks, in short it is not arbitrary and can be used in various modalities. This is useful as it allows us to build a common language about a specific phenomena, such as the harms of air pollution across different communities. Study refers to the sustained time spent attending to a specific activity or phenomenon. The final component of the definition, which is the testing of theories against the evidence obtained, signals a constant change in the perception of the phenomena being studied. This means that science is a process from which to evolve thought, understanding, and insights, rather than to create universalities that lack cognitive evolution.
Let us now look at the cognitive products required by science; observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories. These cognitive products can be looked at as one cognitive arch that all living beings on earth do to assess, interpret, and relate to their environment. When we wake up we might look outside (observation) to check the weather, then dress accordingly, we might then go outside (experiment) to see if what we are wearing feels comfortable. Then we might check an app to check our theory again, this could prompt us to grab an umbrella as the app might say it's raining later. We will continue to do a variation of this process the entire day as we are confronted with new and familiar phenomena. This breakdown of the definition of science allows us to see science as a process that is inherent to being in “good relation” with the world around us, as it creates an understanding that is dynamic and adaptive.
To have a process and method that allows us to understand phenomena deeper and perhaps clearer is a needed strategy for survival and connecting with the world around us. For example, knowing at a superficial level that gardening can help regulate mood is useful. Now imagine understanding that one of the pathways for this phenomenon is through the microbiome we are ingesting from the soil, which is playing a very mechanistic role in balancing our gut, which in turn can have an effect on the regulation of our endocrine system. To know this would make us feel more connected to the soil, the Land, fully experiencing the seamless relationality we have with the world around us. It might make us feel more connected to the Land, changing our relationship with them. This depth provides us with an opportunity to be deliberate and with time build a craft, meaning that the scientific method allows us to build knowledges around microbe exposure, so this phenomena can be available to others at a systemic level.
This framing and intention of science creates room for plurality. All Peoples, communities, and beings can and do engage with the scientific method, creating multiple perceptions of the world around us, which in turn creates multiple realities and worldviews. This is crucial so science stays as a tool rather than a dogmatic singular understanding of the world around us, which is harmful and oppressive.
THE “BAD RELATION” WITH SCIENCE
We recognise that in some societies there is a bad relation with science, which has and continues to do harm. The scientific process is not neutral or unbiased as it is executed by the human mind, which is always influenced by top-down cognitive factors. What questions we ask, influences what and how we observe, which has an influence on data collection and analysis. The selective use of evidence, measurements and processes can be used as a way to discount people’s senses, experiences, intuitions and other forms of complex knowledges. Science is used within power structures to narrowly limit what is classified as ‘truth’ or ‘fact’ into a highly technical and exclusionary sphere of expertise. Data and science are made legible by narrative and culture, it is this expression and weaponisation of a narrow understanding of ‘what is’ that causes harm, not the observation of phenomena in and of itself.
For example, at the start of our work with a community at Southall experiencing severe air pollution from the development of a brownfield site. The application of the scientific method in this case was used to deny the analysis of the community, which rightfully concluded that their health was being compromised by the contamination of the brownfield site. We really want to drive the following distinction; whilst the scientific method itself is universal and agnostic, its execution, use, context and application is not. In Southall, a study was done that concluded that children’s health was not being impacted by the contamination, which was in complete contradiction to what parents were analysing. In both cases a scientific method was being applied and resulting in two very opposite results. And the reason is not simply one was doing “better science” as the method is the method. The root of the differences was the top-down factors. The study being done by the now dismantled Public Health England used the number of absenteeism during the construction timescale. As there was no increase in absenteeism, they concluded there was no increase in poor health. However, they did not understand the dynamics of the community. They were under the assumption that sick children stay home (top-down factor), this is not the case in Southall, where many parents work in shifts. Therefore, in many cases, if children are sick they still have to go to school, making this dataset invalid in this context.
Bad relation with science does not only occur in calculated or top down ways, it is also when scientific analysis is used to explain someone’s experience for them without sharing the methods and processes used to come to that conclusion. The scientific method can become disembodied and divorced from context when a phenomena is only explained and becomes a generalisation, and the tools to observe and understand that phenomena are not embedded. Embedding these processes of integrating observations on the ground, combining them with analysis and using those understandings to effectively build pathways of healing is where justice lies.
This is the bad relation many have with science, it used to deny what people are living on the ground. Therefore, part of building a good relation with science is to work together with communities, so the application of the science is in context of the community's experience.
OUR USE OF NEUROSCIENCE AND ITS LINK TO JUSTICE
Neuroscience is often misconceived as the science of the brain, however, it is far more expansive. It is the study of the central nervous system, which is the inclusion of the brain and the spinal cord. At Centric, we focus on one of the systems within the nervous system, which is the Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Axis (HPA-Axis). The HPA-Axis is a hormonal system that helps the body mitigate our stress response.
There are three reasons we chose to focus on this system
Due to its mitigation of the stress response, the HPA-Axis allows us to understand the physiological relationship between people and the wider environment.
Specifically, it has allowed us to understand the pathway between environmental stressors and the onset of disease.
The study of the HPA-Axis has a decades long history and it led to the concept of allostatic load. In the 1993s scientists McEwen and Stellar theorised that chronic stress leads the body to experience a “wear and tear” (dysregulation) effect, meaning that people who were exposed to constant environmental stressors. The allostatic load theory has been the founding principle of our justice work. It allows us to ask questions such as
Who is disproportionately exposed to environmental stressors? We are not the first to ask this question. Arline Geronimus, also in the 1990s began to explore how the racialised experience, specifically in African American communities, was leading to health inequities.
Does the dysregulation of the HPA-Axis pass through generations? Meaning that it is the places people live in generation after generation that have an effect on health rather than genetic happenstance. This question is also not new, Dr Rachel Yehuda has been studying how cortisol dysregulation, which is one of the consequences of allostatic load, can be passed on from one generation to the next.
What is the link between environmental stressors and poor health outcomes? Prof Robert Sapolsky has explored this question for decades and has been a strong advocate for ending poverty.
Using neuroscience for the purpose of highlighting the link between systemic injustice and violence is not new, we are simply picking up the baton. We see our role as finding methodologies to use science directly on the ground, making it accessible to communities through our various tools and toolkits.
To see the highlights of our work for more context on the use of neuroscience, please read the following pieces of research. Each report also provides the wide range of sources we have used to inform and shape our work.
An Ecological View of Covid-19
HOW DO WE CREATE GOOD RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITY HEALTH?
Allocentric thinking is crucial to Centric Lab’s ecological approach to science. Science can be an additional language to make sense of their environment and self as a result of observation, investigation, and communal knowledge. Good relations between science, community, and community health don’t just rely on the hypotheses being aligned, but rely on a recognition (top-down factors) of the harm and power dynamics that come from experimenting with communities, defining them, where resources are invested in these inquiries, and what is extracted from communities to achieve scientific progress. The harm and extractivism may not always be as direct, obvious, or seemingly relevant. The potential harm and extractivism can also be overshadowed by “good intentions” in a paternalistic approach to science and health.
We can create good relation between science, communities, and community health by:
Following ethical foundations.
Encouraging a culture of scientific inquiry that continually questions the place, timing, and impact of certain hypotheses and if the intended researchers have the cultural capacity to ethically observe and capture a phenomenon.
Institutional science sense checks the implications of making inquiries and drawing conclusions in culturally sensitive topics.
Mystifying the scientific method and aligning or comparing with other forms of observation-analysis-conclusion-application that people may already be familiar with.
Codesigning experimental design and hypotheses with communities.
Building in the ability to recognise the unintended impacts of even well intentioned scientific inquiry and pivot, halt, or divert resources.
Developing equitable practices of inquiry and craft with communities.
Centring scientific inquiry on the needs of community and culture to create the inherent ethical container around science.
Developing accessible methodologies for grassroots science to complement the lab and theoretical work on equal standing.
The structural support to the development of formal and informal community science and health practice.
Provide tools for communities to reach conclusions themselves.
Creating practices of equitable dissemination.
Transparency around the scientific craft with communities.
A better understanding of the utility of “statistics” in relation to scientific conclusions, particularly on culturally sensitive or relevant topics.
Create healthy pathways between scientific knowledge and dissemination that allows for communities to critique and digest findings.
Equitable forums where scientists, community members, and health practitioners align on the current understandings and relevant future inquiries.
Dissemination of core inquiries and conclusions through culture work that aligns science with cultural context.
For more information on the various discussions we have had on the use of the scientific method, please listen to an audio series with three leading public health scientists and our lab - LINK.
OUR FUTURE WITH SCIENCE
We work to make the science understood, equitable and the methods participatory. The research direction is evolving to include peer researchers that are in community, gathering data and developing community-led epidemiological studies that accurately reflect and capture what is happening on the ground. Research enacted with this method maintains humility when it comes to ethical questions of where the boundaries are involving how, or if, we follow certain directions of research.
The HPA Axis and central nervous system have been critical and impactful focal points in how Centric Lab has tied multiple axes of inquiry and investigation that are often addressed in silos into a unifying advocacy around chronic stress and body dysregulation. Having walked with the HPA Axis and the central nervous system as a lens through which to understand how complex diseases manifest within various contexts of injustice, we are now at the beginning stages of incorporating understandings of the Gut-Brain Axis as a lens in the neuroscience that we practice. The Gut Brain Axis is the science for ecological solidarity in which we go beyond understanding how our environment is impacting our health, to getting into the relationship we have between the diverse biomes of mind, body and Land, and how this constant interplay is shaping our health. The Invisible Health report by Dr Jake Robinson highlights the fundamental importance of biodiversity in our environmental microbiome as humans and as a planet. Ecological solidarity at this level will involve creating the bridge between our scientific understandings of what fosters biodiversity and the environmental and societal structures that need to be in place to promote such diversity, from our relationship with Air and Water to access to nourishing food and soil treatment. As we approach this evolved direction in research principles, the Land is an equitable stakeholder to be consulted and respected in all steps of scientific inquiry.
This introduction of the Gut-Brain Axis and, therefore, the inclusion of Land in our use of the scientific method takes us into a deepened relationship and acknowledgement of the reciprocity we must have with Land.
Centric Lab, 2025