The New, the Good, and the
Desirable
Barriers and Opportunities for Social
Appropriation
Sheila Jasanoff
Harvard University
Social Appropriation of Science, Technology, and
Innovation
Universidad EAFIT, Medellin, October 20, 2007
What innovation, whose
appropriation?
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ASCTI: descriptive or normative?
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Conventional wisdom
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Society does appropriate STI
Society should appropriate STI
Blurs distinction
Blames society for lack of uptake
Contrary view
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Normative theories of appropriation need to be made
explicit, unpacked, and critiqued
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What Is Innovation?
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“Some men see things as they are and say
why. I dream things that never were and say
why not.”
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Ted Kennedy, quoting Robert F. Kennedy (1968)
But what have we learned since 1968?
Even dreamers need resources to dream with.
Where do those resources come from?
Who gets to do the dreaming?
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Social Contract
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The right to govern
seen as a contract
between ruler and
ruled.
The people give up
some rights but hold
the king or ruler to
responsible exercise
of powers.
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The Social Contract for Science
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Science--The
Endless Frontier
(1945)
Basic research as
“pacemaker of
technological
progress.”
Contract: Funds and
autonomy for science
in exchange for
innovation.
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Contractual Assumptions
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Central dogmas of US S&T policy after WWII:
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More science = more innovation
More innovation (in science) = more social welfare
National governments have a duty to foster S&T
innovation
S&T are self-regulating institutions and should be
left free to set own agendas for innovation
Imperfections exist in the ideal contract, but they
can be rectified by three mechanisms of
governance (market, regulation, ethics)
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20th Century Technological Visions
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“Big Science”: A Brief History
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Focal points:
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Common elements
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Weapons (Manhattan Project)
Instruments (Sputnik, Hubble)
Facilities (Superconducting Supercollider)
Projects (war on cancer, moon landing, HGP)
National undertakings
Not just science but also technology
Big money
Distinct (and tangible) endpoints
Assumptions
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Linear model: discovery, innovation, uptake
States know what innovation is good for society
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An Innovative Moment – Buzz
Aldrin’s Moon Landing
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Illustrations: 1950-1990
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Privatization of nuclear power and “atoms for
peace”
Expansion of National Institutes of Health
Establishment of National Science Foundation
Apollo Program and NASA
Presidential ethics commissions (1970s-)
Bayh-Dole Act (1980)
Product framing of biotechnology (1984-)
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Changes in the Landscape
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Changing face of S&T: technoscience; “Mode 2”;
mission-oriented science; dual use technologies…
Disasters and crises of confidence: Bhopal, TMI,
Chernobyl, Challenger, BSE, GM crops, 9/11, financial
markets, research misconduct, “capital misconduct”…
Globalization of “the environment”
New “convergent” technologies and their social
problems: nanotech, synthetic biology, robotics…
From managing risk to managing ignorance and
uncertainty
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Missing Perspectives on Innovation
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Collaborative and reflexive research on hybrid (crossdisciplinary) knowledge
Long-term studies of Mode 2 knowledge-making:
impacts, learning, and transformations
Social science paradigm shifts and “emergence studies”
Knowledge-making outside the lab
Cross-cultural studies of science and policy
Ethnographies of power (“studying up”)
Failure and disaster studies
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Alternative visions for scholars
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Instrumental (for policy, for discipline)
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Interpretive
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Give policymakers what they want
Use opportunities for field development
Explain what is going on
Critique existing dominant understandings from other
standpoints (S&T critics)
Normative
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Address what is to be done, but not (necessarily)
from inside dominant policy framings
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New Frame: Co-Production
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Making the worlds we study (e.g., global knowledge,
populations [at risk], “geneticization,” digitization)
Focal points
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Emergence
Controversy
Intelligibility and portability (standardization)
Cultures and practices of research (ethical assumptions)
Mechanisms
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Identities
Institutions
Discourses
Representations
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Object: Publics
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Who are the publics the research intends to benefit, and
are they included in research design?
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How do relevant publics assess the need for more
knowledge?
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What are the attitudes of such publics with respect to
knowledge (Luddites, passive consumers, active
producers, patronized outsiders)?
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When is consultation appropriate, and
with/between/among whom?
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Innovating Forms of Life
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Assumptions of Competence
Innovator
Imagined Publics
Gandhi
Political competence
Martin Luther King
Civic competence
Muhammad Yunus
Economic competence
Tim Berners-Lee
Reading competence
J.K. Rowling
Imaginative competence
Mark Zuckerberg
Social competence
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Global Asymmetries
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Captive technological imaginations
Call centers
 Clinical trials
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Liberated social imaginations
Khadi movement
 Grameen Bank
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Links and translations
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National Institutes of Health vs. Ashoka
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Constitutional Moments
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Formal constitutional amendments are rare in many
countries
However, informal changes occur and can be
constitutional in effect
Constitutional moments
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Redefine relations between states and citizens in fundamental
ways
Change the terms and/or venues of public reasoning and
justification
Reformulate epistemic rights and responsibilities
Are we at a constitutional moment for ASCTI
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US Case: Stirrings of Openness
1946 Administrative Procedure Act
 Historical context
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New Deal struggles and compromises
 Courts, Congress, and the Presidency
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Further developments
Social movements and participatory
engagements in the 1960s
 NEPA (1969) and its environmental progeny
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Rights of the Knowledge-Able Citizen
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Epistemic rights of citizenship in post-1960s
United States:
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Right to know
• Of exposure to risks
• For informed consumption
• To level the economic and social playing field
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Right to give informed consent
Right to demand reasons
Right to participate and offer expertise
Right to challenge irrational decisions
Right to appeal
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Privatization, Ethics, Engagement
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1980s: a sea change
Deregulation
 End of bipolar world order
 Rise of neo-liberalism and “market
fundamentalism”
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Birth of public ethics
 Introduction of “public engagement”
 Persistence of deficit model
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Is “public engagement” discourse a
new constitutional moment?
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New language and concepts
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New problematizations of the “public”
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Empty signifier, deficit model, constructed
interlocutor of the state, partner, “evidence-based”
New forums and processes
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Engagement (not participation), upstream,
interactional
Juries, consensus conferences, consultations,
referenda
New horizons
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Anticipation, scenarios, futures
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What should we appropriate, and is
“public engagement” the way to get it?
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If it restores communication between emotion and intellect,
affect and reason, imagination and argument
If it abandons procedures that have
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Bureaucratized technical reason
Privatized values and emotions
Delegated deliberation to experts (e.g., climate change)
If it restores
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Value conflicts to the public sphere
Contestation among imaginations of the future
Demote science to same level as other modes of democratic
imagination
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