(Re)making matter: design and selection

Kearnes, Matthew

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2007.00744.x

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…While such metaphysical assumptions are unevenly distributed within and across nanotechnology's constituent scientific disciplines (Bensaude-Vincent, 2004), and while there may be cultural differences between European and US versions of nanotechnology policy (Nordmann, 2007a), there nevertheless can be seen to exist a bricolage of practices and programmes that in important ways can be seen as imbuing nanotechnology with its own distinctive metaphysics. Central to its metaphysical programme are visions of control and precision (Kearnes, 2007), of abundance and escape from scarcity (Schwartz, 2004), of emulation and/or improvement of nature (Nordmann, 2005), and of a`dream of reason' that is to overcome once and for all every given that is a part of the human condition (Dupuy, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Researching Technoscientific Concerns in the Making: Narrative Structures, Public Responses, and Emerging Nanotechnologies

Macnaghten

2010

Environ Plan A

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract: This paper engages with debates on technoscientific governance, narrative and emergent public attitudes. Building on a piece of social research addressing public responses to the social and ethical dimensions of emerging nanotechnologies, the paper develops a methodology and mode of analysis designed to take into account four distinctive features of nanotechnology discourse and its constitution in the public sphere, namely: its unfamiliarity; its promissory quality; its uncanniness; and its metaphysical assumptions of progress.Through an analysis of common narratives that shape and structure lay public responses to the technology, and in response to framings of how the technology and its applications are being crafted in the public domain, the paper argues that nanotechnologies offer a site for an intense future politics centred on dilemmas of body invasion, unanticipated risks, nature's revenge, control, inequalities and pace of change. The paper concludes with a set of reflections on the role of the critical social sciences in such a future techno-politics.

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confidence: 99%

Researching Technoscientific Concerns in the Making: Narrative Structures, Public Responses, and Emerging Nanotechnologies

Macnaghten

2010

Environ Plan A

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“…Though obviously hubristic, promises of the social and economic transformation caused by development of nanotechnologies are not strictly unrelated to 'reality' of nanoscience. Kearnes [55,56] and Mody [57] demonstrate that the construction of nanotechnology as a field of research activity is explicitly fuelled by both determinist and reductionist accounts of nanoscience. Visions of both social and economic transformation are premised on the rubric of achieving precise control over and manipulation of matter at the nanoscale.…”

Section: Nested Ambivalencementioning

confidence: 99%

On Nanotechnology and Ambivalence: The Politics of Enthusiasm

Kearnes

Wynne

2007

Nanoethics

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The promise of scientific and technological innovation -particularly in fields such as nanotechnology -is increasingly set against what has been articulated as a deficit in public trust in both the new technologies and regulatory mechanisms. Whilst the development of new technology is cast as providing contributions to both quality of life and national competitiveness, what has been termed a 'legitimacy crisis' is seen as threatening the vitality of this process. However in contrast to the risk debates that dominated the technological controversies of the late 1990s the vitality of technological innovation is now cast as vulnerable to lack of public confidence and trust in the regulatory and governance structures upon which such innovation depends. In order to address this deficit in public trust, science policy has increasingly turned to the social sciences, suggesting that public values might be incorporated into the development of nanotechnology at an early stage. Public ambivalence therefore constitutes the problem addressed by the increasingly central role that public engagement and participation play in contemporary science policy. Although the recent proliferation of public engagement activities is premised on the need to address this ambivalence through direct engagement, we re-interpret ambivalence as an engagedrather than passive -mode of relating to technological determinism. Whilst the move toward forms of direct public engagement might be regarded as symptomatic of the emergence of affective mode of governance we interpret public ambivalence as a nested set of enthusiasms and anxieties. Accordingly we suggest that public engagement might be re-thought, utilising ambivalence as a creative resource, rather than as the problem.

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“…The experimentation‐exploration‐exploitation link is further helpful in sensitising geographers to the question of who is in a position to experiment. Some geographers have worried that too much experimentation is centred around the notion of the privileged, heroic (and gendered) experimenter (see Davies 2010, p. 4; Kearnes 2007, p. 149; White 2010). Following Geraldine Pratt’s concern about who gains in a research relationship (2000), several questions need to be asked: Who gains in an experimental relationship?…”

Section: How To Know and Not Knowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental geographies

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2012

Geography Compass

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The proliferation of the term 'experimental' in human geography has given rise to the question of how geographers experiment. Given the range of different examples -from explorations of sensory methods to attempts at transforming the role of publics in decision-making -it becomes clear that one cannot talk about a unified experimental geographical approach. While projects share common themes such as challenging methodological limitations or wishing to play a more active part in the 'production of space', they also show fundamental differences in their attitude towards knowledge-making and intervention in the world. A starting point for further research and debate, rather than a comprehensive survey, this article outlines themes, differences and productive tensions within the discourse, and highlights the need to examine the wider politics that experimental approaches are embedded in. Experimental GeographiesThe intrinsic complexity of living systems … does not impose a dramatic limit on any possibility of experimentation. What it imposes is the necessity for an intelligent experimentation, which assumes the risky responsibility of asking relevant questions. Isabelle Stengers (1997, p. 16)

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(Re)making matter: design and selection

Cited by 9 publications

References 35 publications

Researching Technoscientific Concerns in the Making: Narrative Structures, Public Responses, and Emerging Nanotechnologies

Researching Technoscientific Concerns in the Making: Narrative Structures, Public Responses, and Emerging Nanotechnologies

On Nanotechnology and Ambivalence: The Politics of Enthusiasm

Experimental geographies

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