MAPS
Provocateur Briefing Report
Forum on Development and Mitigation
DEVELOPMENT FOCUS
Mitigation as Applied Science
Date: 28 February 2014
Author: Lisa Kane
Institution: University of Cape Town
Contact: lisa@lisakane.co.za
Forum on Development and Mitigation
From 27-29 January 2014, over one hundred professionals working mainly in the climate change mitigation
field, in Southern contexts, gathered at the Cape Town Waterfront for the Forum on Development and
Mitigation (the Forum). The event was hosted by the Energy Research Centre of the University of Cape
Town, the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, and the international Mitigation Action Plans and
Scenarios (MAPS) Programme. As a feature of the Forum nine South African development experts, the
‘Development Provocateurs’ were invited to participate in the event and write a short reflective piece
afterwards. These briefing notes considered the discourse at the Forum from the perspective of each
Provocateur’s particular area of expertise, looking at shared priorities, disconnects and other points of
contact.
This briefing note responds from the perspective of ‘Mitigation as applied Science’ by Lisa Kane. The full set
of briefings have been compiled into a compendium, available at www.devmitforum.ercresources.org.za
and www.mapsprogramme.org.
The content of this brief is the responsibility of the authors. The views expressed in it are those of the
author alone.
MITIGATION AS APPLIED SCIENCE
Introduction
From 27-29 January 2014, one hundred or so professionals working mainly in the climate change mitigation field in
Southern contexts gathered at the Cape Town Waterfront concerned with the sluggish pace of mitigation efforts, and the
shared difficulty of asserting climate change as a policy priority in the midst of at-home concerns for ‘development’. With
this in mind the Forum asked: ‘if development drove the discourse, how would mitigation look different?’ Invited into this
space were a panel of ‘provocateurs’, asked to provide “candid reflections on the DevMit Forum discourse, its alignment (or
non-alignment) with the priorities of your area of expertise, and any issues that you identify as being productive in focusing
on going forward”.
This briefing paper draws on the author’s own PhD work, which was initiated following frustrations with the state of the
transport discourse, and its seeming inability to offer explanations for the state of transport development. The paper draws
on the critical (in an academic rather than a personal sense) discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and brings
to the fore questions of reflexivity – that is, the reflection on the state of one’s own practices - within the mitigation
discipline.
By way of introduction to what follows, the paper starts with some brief historical context to the STS discipline, which serve
to introduce some key concerns and themes in the discipline. Some (possibly useful) concepts follow which, given the
Forum discourse, the author felt may be valuable as departure points. These are, however, described very superficially.
Interested readers are directed to the references given at the end of the paper.
Origin Stories1
There is broad agreement in the STS literature about the importance to its origins of: the science historian, Kuhn; the
environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s; the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK); and historical work
on large-scale technical systems (of electric power) by Hughes. Feminist scholarship is also frequently mentioned as an
important influence (Shapin 1995; Faulkner 2001; Pinch 2008; Wajcman 2010). These movements were sceptical that
scientific knowledge is somehow exceptional. They queried the idea that science has its own unique and abstract way of
1 Note: This is an edited version of the author’s unexamined PhD thesis. Please request permission from the author before citing.
Provocateur Briefing Report
2
Forum on Development and Mitigation
knowing the world. They asked whether science really did sit outside of context. This scepticism drove research into the
making of ‘knowledge’, and practices which create ‘knowledge’.
In Kuhn’s 1962 book he questioned the prevailing account of science as an activity unrelated to history. Kuhn argued that
the science of the past was not a curious anomaly (as it seemed to present-day science). Instead the science of the past
made good sense once its historical context was better understood. Leading from this insight, one of Kuhn’s core concepts
was that of scientific paradigms which change over time. Kuhn described paradigms as “coherent traditions of practice in
normal science – including law, theory, application, and instrumentation” (Kuhn 1962: 10). The idea of a paradigm assumes
the concept of scientific communities of practice which have shared processes of education and professionalization. Kuhn
drew on Polyani’s ideas of science as a craft with ’tacit knowledge’, acquired through practice and not readily articulated
(Kuhn 1962: 44).
This characteristic of ‘tacitness’ in communities of practice makes the ’rules’ of a discipline both difficult to see if one is
inside it, but also confers on those ‘rules’ a validity which is forged through the social consensus of a closed group.
‘Outsiders’ can see tacit rules more readily by asking questions like: What is taken-for-granted here? What is universally
held as true, right or wrong here? What are the silences about? What practices are allowed in and what is kept out? These
were the questions posed by the author during the Forum.
Another important influence for STS was the ‘Sociology of Scientific Knowledge’ (SSK). During the late 1970s and early 1980s
the writers Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Harry Collins, Donald MacKenzie, Michael Mulkay, Richard Whitley and Steve
Woolgar were part of an intellectual melting pot which helped to define the Science Studies field, alongside an eclectic mix
of philosophical, sociological, and anthropological influences; and detailed historical work on the natural sciences (Pinch
2008). SSK created space for sociologists to describe and offer alternative explanations of scientific knowledge to the
traditionally accepted one, which held science as epistemologically exceptional.
Thomas Hughes’ thinking on Large Technical Systems, was also part of the mix of early thinking around the history and
sociology of technology (Bijker, Hughes & Pinch 1987). Hughes’ concepts drew on histories of technology (especially related
to Edison and power systems), and systems thinking (from engineering). Often noted was the ’seamless web’ concept which
denies the compartmentalisation of ‘technology’ and ‘society’ and instead tells of an endless interplay between these.
Some useful concepts?
‘System-builders’
Thomas Hughes’ rich, historical narrative “Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930” helped to
develop a vocabulary for thinking about complexity in Large Technical Systems. Through this work Hughes told of the
development of the modern electrical supply and emphasised the role of Edison as a system builder, while also drawing
attention to cross-disciplinary synthesis work that had been needed to develop electrical power. Hughes saw Edison’s
problem as a general economics one (how to get electricity to market at a lower cost than gas); a specific cost one (how to
carry the current required while minimising the use of expensive copper wire); and also a physics one (how to maintain
sufficient current in the reduced cross-section copper filament). The answers were found through ‘an abundance of patient
hunt-and-try’, mixed in with flashes of insight. To develop the system to market place, though, Edison’s work went well
beyond invention, and he became ‘inventor-entrepreneur’. This required him to develop, or draw on, skills of promotion
and fund-raising on Wall Street and political lobbying in New York to complement the mixed skillset in his laboratory of the
Provocateur Briefing Report
3
Forum on Development and Mitigation
mathematical, craft and mechanical (Hughes 1999). The shared characteristic of system builders was the ability to ‘force
unity from diversity, centralisation in the face of pluralism, and coherence from chaos’ (Bijker, Hughes & Pinch 2012: 46).
Law (1987) has written of the ‘heterogeneous engineering’ required to do this type of system building work. Incidentally,
such heterogeneous engineering was called for at various stages of the conference and contrasted with the current,
singular disciplinary focus of most academic mitigation efforts. Organisers called for a willingness and open-ness to work
across disciplines. Hilton Trollip also spoke of the value of political science insights which worked well, he argued, with
engineering and economics.
Social groups coalescing
Pinch and Bijker used the historical case of bicycle development to show how social groups coalesce around meanings for
some emerging ‘thing’. Thus apparently odd (from the vantage point of the present) incarnations of bicycle design can be
better understood if the meanings which social groups attached to themselves, and to cycling at that time, are analysed. In
such an analysis, the high-wheeled bicycles are understood as exciting racing machines, enabling their users to experience
the thrill and danger of speed and to coalesce around a shared interest, rather than as a design ‘mistake’. Thus while vehicle
design of the present appears as right, this is not because it is inherently and inevitably so, rather it is a consequence of
social consensus making. This insight adds weight to the argument that trajectories of consumption and production are not
inevitable, rather they are strongly shaped by the meanings which social groups attach to the technologies, such as cars, of
middle-class lifestyles.
Credibility, trust, social identity and expertise
Brian Wynne criticises the assumption that scientific knowledge is readily able to be translated to the public, and the
assumption that the receipt of scientific knowledge depends mainly on the cognitive abilities of the public recipients.
Wynne argues that this model – of knowledge expert, knowledge recipient and some ‘cognitive deficit’ between the two has failed to recognise the roles of credibility, trust, social relations and social identities in public-science relationships. He
argues that the uptake of science depends upon relationships of trust between the representatives of science and the
public, and also on the perceived credibility of scientists and their institutions. Wynne goes one step further, arguing that
‘trust’ and ‘credibility’ should not be seen as static analytical artifacts, but rather as outcomes of social relations and their
related social identities. If social identities are challenged by science then this can, he argues, contribute to a lack of trust in
relations (Wynne 1991; 1992; 1996b; 2007).
Wynne has illustrated his points through case studies of farmers and scientists caught up in debates over nuclear
contamination of grazing around Sellafield in the wake of the Chernobyl fall-out incident. The failure of scientists to
recognise the deep practice and locally relevant expertise of the farmers’ about sheep grazing lead to the discrediting of the
science presented, and very reluctant uptake by the farmers of the science (Wynne 1996a). In other work Wynne has
considered public understanding in contemporary cases of nano- and bio-technology (Kearnes et al. 2006); climate science
(Wynne 2010); and genetically modified organisms (Wynne 2001).
Silence and acceptance
Wynne emphasises that silences, quietudes, and apparent ‘apathy’ in public-science relations should not be interpreted as
public acceptance. Rather they can be masks for an underlying sense of powerlessness; of alienation; or of tacit disavowal
of attempts at control. He suggests looking at social public-science relations and at attempts to express or defend social
identity within those settings as a means of better understanding ‘apathy’.
Provocateur Briefing Report
4
Forum on Development and Mitigation
Some initial reflections on mitigation as applied science
Returning again to the questions posed by the author at the outset about the Forum: What is taken-for-granted? What is
universally held as true, right or wrong? What are the silences about? What practices are allowed in and what is kept out?
These are not simple questions. Some initial comments, inevitably condensed, follow based on the experience of the few
days:
Taken-for-granted, it seems, is that mitigation is an applied science. Drawing from science, the mitigation discipline values
data collection, and the notions of objectivity and accuracy. As an applied science, the mitigation discourse also depends
heavily on quantitative modelling and forecasting of the future as a way to know. Many of the research outputs presented
over the Forum were framed in this way – tables, models, graphs, charts. The idea that the world can be known, given
sufficient accurate data and improved models, strongly guides the discourse.
This is a deeply material worldview, which tends to treat humans as somewhat homogenous and atom-like. It is quite
removed from thinking about a social, political, cultural, historical, gendered world, which finds (and celebrates) diversity
and difference. The first discussions about human lifestyles and diversity, after the opening session nods to them, came
only with Tasneem Essop’s presentation on South Africa’s experience of National Development Planning.
The knower in this world is disembodied, and does not believe that human emotion is part of knowing. (The keynote
presentation from politician Sergio Margulis, which was deeply emotionally evocative, was awkwardly received by the
group – and later described in plenary as ‘cheeky’).
It is also a somewhat predictable world, which tends to assume that ‘the future’ is an island waiting to be discovered, rather
than a place which is co-created. (The keynote speaker Anand Patwardan touched on this when he said: “Technologies –
are a sobering reminder that the world doesn’t always work the way we think it should.”)
This is the worldview of experts and expertise. The Multi-Criteria Framework assumes that an expert can know a complex
situation, assign weightings to contested matters of value and valuing, and come to an independent decision which will be
right (according to this worldview) and adopted. The ideas of empowerment are not well developed in this worldview.
This is a rational worldview, which trusts that good objective science will inform and lead to the best decision-making, and
that planning should be a rational activity. It is understandably perplexed by the world of politics and power, and retains a
sense of self-justified moral superiority over it. Unfortunately this may stop deep engagement with planning and decisionmaking as it is; rather than planning and decision-making as it is desired to be by the mitigation community.
Provocateur Briefing Report
5
Forum on Development and Mitigation
References
Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. & Pinch, T. (eds) 2012, The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the
sociology and history of technology., Anniversary Edition ed, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. & Pinch, T.J. 1987, The social construction of technological systems: new directions in the
sociology and history of technology, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Faulkner, W. 2001, "The technology question in feminism: a view from feminist technology studies", Women's Studies
International Forum, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 79-95.
Hughes, T.P. 1999, "Edison and electric light" in The Social Shaping of Technology, eds. D. MacKenzie & J. Wajcman, Second
ed, Open University Press, Maidenhead, pp. 50-63.
Kearnes, M.B., Grove-White, R., Macnaghten, P.M., Wilsdon, J. & Wynne, B. 2006, "From bio to nano: learning lessons from
the UK agriculture biotechnology controversy", Science as Culture, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 291-307.
Kuhn, T.S. 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Law, J. 1987, "Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The case of Portuguese Expansion" in The Social Construction of
Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, eds. W.E. Bijker, T.P. Hughes & T. Pinch,
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 111-134.
Pinch, T. 2008, "Technology and institutions: living in a material world", Theory and Society, vol. 37, pp. 461-483.
Shapin, S. 1995, "Here and everywhere: Sociology of scientific knowledge", Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 21, pp. 289321.
Wajcman, J. 2010, "Feminist theories of technology", Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 34, pp. 143-152.
Wynne, B. 2010, "Strange weather again: climate science as political art", Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 27, no. 2-3, pp.
289-305.
Wynne, B. 2007, "Dazzled by the mirage of influence? : STS-SSK in multivalent registers of relevance", Science, Technology
and Human Values, vol. 32, pp. 491-503.
Wynne, B. 2001, "Creating public alienation: expert cultures of risks and ethics on GMOs", Science as Culture, vol. 10, no. 4,
pp. 445-481.
Wynne, B. 1996a, "May the sheep safely graze? A reflexive view of the expert-lay knowledge divide" in Risk, Environment
and Modernity: Towards a new Ecology, eds. S. Lash, B. Szerszynski & B. Wynne, Sage, London.
Wynne, B. 1996b, "SSK's Identity parade: Signing-up, off- and -on", Social Studies of Science, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 357-391.
Wynne, B. 1992, "Misunderstood misunderstanding: social identities and public uptake of science", Public Understanding of
Science, vol. 1, pp. 281-304.
Wynne, B. 1991, "Knowledges in Context", Science, Technology and Human Values, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 111-121.
Provocateur Briefing Report
6