The Obama administration spent more than $900,000 on two studies looking at feminist identity in glaciers and recreating medieval smells, according to a report on wasteful spending by Sen. James Lankford.
Lankford’s wastebook is a continuation of attempts by senators to document billions in frivolous and unnecessary spending. The book highlighted 100 federal government projects it considered wasteful that totaled billions in unnecessary spending.
Federal agencies spent about $413,000 studying feminist identity in glaciers and another $495,000 recreating medieval smells in a museum. Taxpayer dollars were used to fund both projects.
The money for the glaciers was provided by The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the cash for medieval smells was provided by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The NSF receives an annual budget of about $7 billion dollars. The NEH requested a budget of $148 million in 2016, while the NEA got about $148 million the same year. The Institute of Museum and Library Services received about $230 million in 2016.
The feminist glacier study, by historian Dr. Mark Carey of the University of Oregon and some student researchers, was financially supported by a five-year long NSF grant. Carey has received $709,125 in total grants from the federal NSF.
“Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions,” reads Carey’s abstract. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Progress in Human Geography in January.
