Sustainability and techno-science: What do we want to sustain and for whom?

Benessia, Alice; Funtowicz, Silvio

doi:10.1504/ijsd.2015.072666

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Yet, although frequently recalled, the identity of makers is not really discussed, somehow leaving it to the idea of tech enthusiasts “coming up with better, smarter, more efficient solutions for producing goods and delivering services”. Such view seems to resonate with how modern framings of buzzwords such as “sustainability” are functional to a certain understanding of innovation (Benessia & Funtowicz, 2015), whereby society continuously stands in a position for the better, the smarter, and the more efficient. Are we certain that makers share a similar idea of what needs to be better, smarter, and more efficient?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Mapping do-it-yourself science

Ferretti

2019

Life Sci Soc Policy

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The emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science movements is becoming a topic widely discussed in academia and policy, as well as by the general public and the media. While DIY approaches enjoy increasing diffusion even in official research, different social actors frequently talk about them in different ways and circumstances. Interaction and negotiation processes amongst actors (e.g. policy makers and DIY communities) define the premises upon which different conceptualisations of DIY science are deployed.In this paper we offer a framework for analysing the discourse on DIY science.Our study consists of a field research of three spaces active in DIY science premises, two dedicated events of the DIY community, and an auto-ethnography in the field of DIY biology.By relying on the theory of social worlds/arenas (SW/A), we collected data on how notions of DIY science are constructed by different social actors and how conceptual borders are built or are likely to shift, resulting in multiple possible SW/A mappings. We conclude that each and every conceptualisation of DIY science cannot stand independently from the situatedness of its multiple contexts, therefore making its usage in policy making and governance particularly complex.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Mapping do-it-yourself science

Ferretti

2019

Life Sci Soc Policy

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“…Through the current framing on company websites, sustainability remains something that will emerge in the future, rather than something that requires intentional efforts, imagination, and urgent collective action to be undertaken in the present. It allows technological advances to be the solution to sustainability, and in this way elides a need to grapple with more complex, sociopolitical dimensions of sustainability [17].…”

Section: Free-market Sustainability: Business As Usualmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There has so far been little scholarship examining the relationship between synthetic biology and sustainability [17][18][19][20]. This is complicated by the contested meaning of sustainability itself [21,22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring presentations of sustainability by US synthetic biology companies

2021

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The field of synthetic biology is increasingly being positioned as a key driver of a more sustainable, bio-based economy, and has seen rapid industry growth over the past 15 years. In this paper we undertake an exploratory investigation of the relationship between sustainability and synthetic biology, identifying and analyzing sustainability-related language on the public websites of 24, US-based synthetic biology companies. We observe that sustainability is a visible part of the self-presentation of the nascent synthetic biology industry, explicitly mentioned by 18 of the 24 companies. The dominant framing of sustainability on these company websites emphasizes environmental gains and “free-market” approaches to sustainability, with little explicit mention of social dimensions of sustainability such as access, justice or intergenerational equity. Furthermore, the model of sustainability presented focuses on incremental transition towards environmental sustainability through direct substitution of products and processes using bioengineered alternatives (n = 16 companies), with no change in societal consumption or policy frameworks required in order to see sustainability gains. One-third of the companies analyzed (n = 8) mention “nature” on their websites, variously framing it as a resource to be managed or as a source of inspiration; whether the latter signals a potentially more complex relationship with nature than advanced free-market models of sustainability remains to be seen. As the synthetic biology industry begins to grow in size and visibility, we suggest this is an opportune time for the community to engage in explicit deliberation about its approach to sustainability.

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“…As a result, water became an issue that needed to be-and could be-mastered by technoscientific means and was thus removed from its social and cultural contexts. This led to injustices through the deprivation of rights and the destruction of the environment [12,16,[60][61][62][63]. Second, governance approaches tended to focus on issues of action coordination and to a lesser degree on underlying political problems, related values and norms and affected actors [3,4,55,64,65].…”

Section: Reductionist Water Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

I Want to Tell You a Story: How Narrative Water Ethics Contributes to Re-theorizing Water Politics

Meisch

2019

Water

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This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and dominance are ignored. Against this background, this paper argues for a re-theorization of the political in water governance, understood as the way in which diverse ideas about possible and desirable human-water relationships and just configurations for their institutionalization are negotiated in society. Theorization is conceived as the concretization of reality rather than its abstraction. Narrative ethics deals with the narrative structure of moral action and the significance of narrations for moral action. It occupies a middle ground and mediates between descriptive ethics that describe moral practices, and prescriptive ethics that substantiate binding norms. A distinguishing feature is its focus on people’s experiences and their praxis. Narrative water ethics is thus able to recognize the multitude of real and possible human-water relationships, to grasp people’s entanglement in their water stories, to examine moral issues in their cultural contexts, and, finally, to develop locally adapted notions of good water governance.

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Sustainability and techno-science: What do we want to sustain and for whom?

Cited by 26 publications

References 23 publications

Mapping do-it-yourself science

Mapping do-it-yourself science

Exploring presentations of sustainability by US synthetic biology companies

I Want to Tell You a Story: How Narrative Water Ethics Contributes to Re-theorizing Water Politics

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