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Questioning ‘Participation’: A Critical Appraisal of its Conceptualization in a Flemish Participatory Technology Assessment

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Abstract

This article draws attention to struggles inherent in discourse about the meaning of participation in a Flemish participatory technology assessment (pTA) on nanotechnologies. It explores how, at the project’s outset, key actors (e.g., nanotechnologists and pTA researchers) frame elements of the process like ‘the public’ and draw on interpretive repertoires to fit their perspective. The examples call into question normative commitments to cooperation, consensus building, and common action that conventionally guide pTA approaches. It is argued that pTA itself must reflect an awareness of competing interests and perspectives inherent in the discourse associated with the meaning of ‘participation’ if it is to incite action beyond vested interests and ensure genuine mutual learning.

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Notes

  1. Flanders is the northern region of Belgium with its own government and parliament, which regulate both science and technology policy and innovation policy.

  2. The language of ‘co-construction’ (and ‘co’ in general) pervades NanoSoc publications; for instance in phrases like “[the] collective construction of possible technological trajectories” (NPD (Nanotechnologies for Tomorrow’s Society Project Description) 2005) and in an article on the first NanoSoc round, entitled “Co-creating nano-imaginaries” (Deblonde et al. 2008), to give two examples. The notion of ‘co-construction’ is closely linked to that of “co-responsibility” (Goorden et al. 2008a, b), which implies that both technology promoters and demanders contribute to the development of technology and should therefore endeavor to share the responsibility of promoting the “reflexive co-evolution of technology and society” (Goorden et al. 2008b).

  3. Both in the SCOT model and in NanoSoc it is stressed that new issues may be introduced or new social groups may form after closure has been reached, causing a new round of debate about technology.

  4. As a note of clarification, “consensus” as it is used here does not signify unanimity among participants or singular agreement between them on how to perceive issues or how to best deal with them. Rather, it refers to the theory and practice of reaching agreements through collaborative, non-coercive problem solving, and to the commitment of reconciling different perspectives by having participants create a shared framework of action with which they can all identify.

  5. For similar reasons, Andy Stirling contends that participatory perspectives that build solely on the “substantive” rationale for participation are blind to considerations of power, “focussing instead on apparently transcendent qualities such as precaution or robustness” (Stirling 2008, p. 275).

  6. Organizing a deliberative inquiry is of course an exercise of power in itself.

  7. This is not to say that these are the only notions that potentially construct the meaning of participation. See the subsequent examples contained in this article. For a more developed account of how particular uses of the above notions construct particular visions of public engagement, see the work of Laurent (2007).

  8. These were held at two different nanotechnology institutes on April 27, 2007 and May 4, 2007, respectively.

  9. Likewise, the various contributions pTA researchers make to participatory efforts like NanoSoc should also be examined with regard to how they pre-frame debates, set agendas, give voice to certain actors, delegate roles, and attribute responsibilities.

  10. The notion of “communities of practice” is derived from Wenger (1998).

  11. This observation corresponds with a more general point, as developed by Foucault (1976) and in Arie Rip’s account of how social research is crafted (2000). In defining his or her methods the sociologist (in this case the pTA researcher) has to ally him/herself with the powers that be so as to shape the world. One of the questions this article raises is the extent to which the social scientist becomes intellectually and socio-politically dependent on the actors he/she studies, rather than manages to forge a genuine partnership with them; or, more along the lines of Foucault, manages to “discipline” them in ways that incite mutual dependence.

  12. For more on these workshops, see the work of Deblonde et al. (2008).

  13. This is a non-literal transcription based on my notes. It is translated from the Dutch, as are all the ensuing citations. Each attempts to capture as much as possible the sense and tone of the original responses.

  14. This is not to pass judgement on how individuals frame and negotiate issues in interaction, but rather to ask what is actually done in interactions, to what effect, and why framing issues in specific ways makes sense from a particular perspective.

  15. This is in itself debatable, as a few prominent scientists like Joy (2000) do argue the scientific feasibility of self-replication at the nanoscale and point out risks accordingly.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Stefan Aerts, Lieve Goorden, Brice Laurent, Ilse Loots, and Michaela Spencer for helpful comments on previous versions of this article. Above all I am grateful to Johan Evers, with whom I explored and developed many of the ideas contained in this article. The study was made possible through the Fund for Scientific Research—Flanders (FWO).

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  1. Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, Department of Environment and Sustainable Development, University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobstraat 2, 2000, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Michiel van Oudheusden

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van Oudheusden, M. Questioning ‘Participation’: A Critical Appraisal of its Conceptualization in a Flemish Participatory Technology Assessment. Sci Eng Ethics 17, 673–690 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-011-9313-z

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