In recent years, governance and public participation have developed into key notions within both policy discourse and academic analysis. While there is much discussion on developing new modes of governance and public participation, little... more
In recent years, governance and public participation have developed into key notions within both policy discourse and academic analysis. While there is much discussion on developing new modes of governance and public participation, little empirical attention is paid to the public’s perception of models, possibilities and limits of participation and governance. Building on focus group data collected in Austria within the framework of a European project, this article explores lay people’s visions and versions of government, governance and participation for two biomedical technologies: post-natal genetic testing and organ transplantation. Building on this analysis, we show that people situate their assessments of public participation against the background of rather complex lay models of the governance and gov- ernment of the respective technology. Because these models are very different for the two technologies, participation also had very different connotations, which were deeply intertwined with each socio-technical system. Building on these findings we argue for a more technology-sensitive approach to pub- lic participation.
This paper investigates how public discourses, as articulated in EU policy and Austrian media documents, take part in the creation and stabilisation of a new patient figure – the e-patient. The documents we analysed act as one material... more
This paper investigates how public discourses, as articulated in EU policy and Austrian media documents, take part in the creation and stabilisation of a new patient figure – the e-patient. The documents we analysed act as one material form for enacting, performing and giving meaning to the changes occurring when a new technology enters established networks in the medical realm. Our analysis will show that the public discourses we studied deploy three rather different forms of discursive registers, each of which address and perform a specific relation between currently new information and communication technologies and citizen-patients. From one place, moment or problem-solution package to the next a slightly different hybrid and ‘multiple citizen-patient’ is being shaped, discussed, observed or concealed. The multiplicity we observed reveals crucial tensions and contradicting expectations expressed towards the future citizen-patient, showing the challenges for e-health in the making.
This article introduces a group discussion method for public engagement and qualitative re-search on emerging technologies. The method uses card sets and a deliberative choreography in order to facilitate citizens’ individual and... more
This article introduces a group discussion method for public engagement and qualitative re-search on emerging technologies. The method uses card sets and a deliberative choreography in order to facilitate citizens’ individual and collective imaginations of nanotechnology in the Austrian context. The aim is to better understand how citizens develop and negotiate positions on unfamiliar technologies, what resources they employ and what role card material can play in this process. By drawing on concepts from Science and Technology Studies, the paper dis-cusses the design of the methodological setting and its presumptions (“script”) as well as how citizens in four discussion groups re-interpreted (elements of) the setting (their “de-scription”). The method’s potential lies in balancing individual and collective phases, showing participants’ modes of ordering, addressing non-chosen cards/issues, enabling citizens to scrutinize expert positions and enhancing their capacity to imagine how nanotechnology could develop in the future.
Over past decades we have witnessed considerable debate questioning the capacity of contemporary research to address the challenges posed by complex societal developments. As a consequence the need for rethinking cultures and practices... more
Over past decades we have witnessed considerable debate questioning the capacity of contemporary research to address the challenges posed by complex societal developments. As a consequence the need for rethinking cultures and practices of knowledge production has moved high on the policy agenda, in particular in areas like natural resource management or more broadly speaking sustainability issues. In this context transdisciplinarity has become one of the key-notions standing for more openness towards and engagement with non-scientific actors all along the process of knowledge production. While there is much debate on the broader issue and programmes are put in place little is known about the research realities in contexts where different kinds of actors - scientists and societal actors - are to be engaged in knowledge production. This paper will focus on early stage researchers and
how they manage to reconcile the demands of transdisciplinarity with other normative demands in contemporary research such as accountability, mobility and the rigid "career-scripts" defining access to more stable positions. Using the concept of "epistemic living spaces", which addresses how researchers see their room for epistemic and social manoeuvre within research, the paper
thus explores the possibilities and limits of contemporary research structures to accommodate this alternative way of producing knowledge and addresses issues of responsibility towards younger researchers.
This paper investigates a case where a national technopolitical identity became strongly tied to a very specific imaginary of technological choice, namely collectively keeping a set of technologies out of the national territory and... more
This paper investigates a case where a national technopolitical identity became strongly tied to a very specific imaginary of technological choice, namely collectively keeping a set of technologies out of the national territory and becoming distinct by not embracing them. The analysis start by looking at how nanotechnologies as a new field (can) get imagined, practiced, assessed, and governed at the backdrop of existing sociotechnical imaginaries. Identifying the debates around the rejection of nuclear energy and agro-biotechnology in the Austrian context as key for dealing with nanotechnologies, the paper will offer insights into the work that had been done to construct a specific of sociotechnical imaginary, to nourish and keep it alive as well as to naturalize it. In doing so, sociotechnical imaginaries are shown to be the result of a slow historical bottom-up creation process across different technological fields. Finally, the paper will challenge standard interpretations of technological resistance as a form of technophobia which might be putting in danger the innovation-friendly climate which is so sought after. Much rather the paper argues that thereby, a space for alternative innovations and identity making is opened up, thus expressing a preference for one kind of future over another
