http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/locating-technoscience
ESRC Research Seminar: Locating Technoscience
The Geographies of Science, Technology and Politics
The ‘geography of science’ is of growing interest and significance. Concerns about the geographies of science
and technology feature prominently in the activities of government, industry and civil society, at many scales.
There are questions around the development and implications of a global knowledge economy, the spatial
contexts to technological innovation and regulation, and the changing boundaries between public and
private scientific enterprise. These issues are simultaneously reflected in efforts to create new spaces for
publics to engage with the production of scientific knowledge and application in diverse contexts. Such
questions are the focus of recent academic research in different disciplines, with increased interest by Human
Geographers in social studies of science and technology, whilst the Science and Technology Studies (STS)
community has begun to address spatiality as a crucial aspect of the study of technoscience. However,
despite this ‘trading zone’ for ideas and approaches, there has been surprisingly little sustained interaction
between scholars in the two disciplines. This two-year ESRC seminar series aims to bring together new and
established researchers working from Geography and STS perspectives, alongside practitioners interested in
the geographies of science, to develop shared insights and create new perspectives on the role of space in
the practices of technoscience.
1. Making Space
for Science
2. Laboratory
Lifeworlds?
3. Locating emergent
technologies
4. Spaces of secrecy
and transparency
5. Geographies of
power and
responsibility
The first conference
addresses the interdisciplinary challenge
of conceptualising a
‘geography of scientific
knowledge’. Through
keynote speakers and
workshops, the seminar
will showcase and
discuss the concepts,
topics, and research
methods used to
explore the geographies
of science in both
geography and STS,
whilst examining the
opportunities for
dialogue between
them.
In this seminar, we
explore the importance
of geography in
understanding the
production of lay
knowledges. Both
building on and
questioning the social
and spatial imaginaries
underpinning much
work in the public
understanding of
science, we seek to
generate new insights
into the democratisation of expertise
in an increasingly
complex society.
Emergent technologies
raise questions for both
Geography and STS.
Focusing on case
studies of nanotechnology, this seminar
explores the influence
of place in shaping patterns of technological
emergence. We also
consider how spaces
such as the city, region
and nation, are
implicated in producing
new technologies as
the object of
government policy,
economic interest or
public attention.
Much work in
Geography and STS is
premised on methods
that follow actors into
the spaces of
knowledge production.
This seminar explores
the limits to these
models of openness,
through charting the
complex performance
of transparency and
secrecy in different
commercial, military
and state contexts,
considering the
difference such
spatialities make to the
practices of science.
The final conference
addresses the political
and policy dimensions
to the project of
creating a ‘geography of
scientific knowledge’.
In concluding, we seek
to explore how spatial
accounts of knowledge
and power can
contribute to the better
governance of science,
and consider the
implications of ‘locating
technoscience’ for all
institutions involved in
the production of
knowledge.
April 2006
UCL
July 2006
Oxford
November 2006
Cambridge
April 2007
Sussex
July 2007
UCL
Seminar Organisers
Dr Gail Davies, Department of Geography, UCL
Dr Brian Balmer, Centre for Bioscience and Society, UCL
Dr Charles Thorpe, Science and Technology Studies, UCL
Professor Sarah Whatmore, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford
Dr Robert Doubleday, Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge
Dr Adam Hedgecoe, Department of Sociology, University of Sussex
Participation in seminars will
be by invitation. To register
your interest please consult
the web, contact us or
complete the form overleaf.