Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge

Irwin, A. and Michael, M. Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge . Maidenhead : Open University Press , 2003 £16.99 (pbk) xiv + 175 pp . ISBN 033520947 5 As Irwin and Michael point out social science has much to offer to our understanding of the new practical and intellectual challenges posed by scientific expertise. This book will be of interest to many concerned with health and medicine. Not only is medicine a key area of controversial innovation, health risks have become intrinsic to decision-making about a broad range of technical and environmental issues such as the safety of genetically modified foods. As questions concerning the governance of science and the mitigation of risks are woven into social and political agendas, the role of expertise and experts is increasingly problematic: can such questions be opened up to public participation, creating new kinds of democratic institution and shaping new kinds of citizenship? In this book, Irwin and Michael develop a detailed argument about the way that public understanding of science (PUS) research can best offer insights into the relationship between experts, lay publics and public governance. This slim volume is ambitious in scope. The main focus is abstract, outlining the development of a particular methodological and theoretical perspective. However, the first few chapters set this aim in context by describing the development of PUS research and recent changes in the relationship between science and public policy. The chapter mapping the short history of PUS charts how different interdisciplinary strands have come together to create this research area, identifying tensions between two main approaches: the ‘questionnaire approach’ which utilises mainly quantitative methodology in order to measure scientific literacy, and the ‘ethnographic tendency’ which uses qualitative methodologies to explore ‘situated knowledges’. The former tends to remove knowledge from its social and cultural context, making deficits in individual knowledge visible. The latter uncovers dynamic interaction between various knowledge communities and science (importantly treating scientific and lay views in a symmetrical way), and looks at how social identities are both affected by and shape this interaction. It is refreshing in multidisciplinary research to see the consequences of divides clarified rather than glossed over and Irwin and Michael are clear that their sympathies lie with the ethnographic tendency. This enables the authors to point out that the different questions asked by these approaches feed into public policy in very different ways. The next chapter provides an interesting overview of the different regulatory frameworks that have developed in the United States and in Europe. This documents the recent shift from top down, expert-led policy-making, to a more democratic style of consultation which, the authors argue, heralds the emergence of a new kind of scientific citizenship. These shifts are patchy and fragile, however. Tension remains between the values accorded to scientific evidence and public views in establishing standards and goals. There are increasing moves to conduct public consultations without clear processes establishing how this will affect policy (as seen in the recent consultation exercise regarding genetically modified foods). Irwin and Michael make the point that ethnographic PUS research can explore key issues such as how trust can be developed and lost, or, how interests and cultural misunderstandings fuel conflicts. While they are enthusiastic about the contribution that ethnographic research can make, they nevertheless make some important caveats. A laudable aim of this book is to reassess PUS in relation to recent theoretical arguments. The policy-directed nature of such research has set its focus within national boundaries, and the tendency to conduct qualitative research within ‘community’ has led to the reification of particular kinds of regional and cultural boundaries. This is at odds with theoretical developments which reconfigure the relationship between global/regional/personal levels of analysis. Irwin and Michael, therefore, argue for a rethink of the way research sites and populations are framed. They wish to develop a methodological and theoretical perspective that is flexible enough to engage with the many kinds of collectivity involved in negotiating science public policy; from corporations to local communities or activist groups. Drawing on actor network theory they develop the fluid concept of ‘ethno-epistemic assemblage’, which, they argue, can be applied to the social values, knowledges and identities of the diverse groups involved. Their aim is ambitious - to enable a theoretical engagement with complex issues which can be both global and intensely local, while retaining sensitivity to the heterogeneity of the social actors. They illustrate their argument with an impressive number of case studies from local responses in Jarrow to a chemical factory, to scientific justifications for xeno-transplantation. The argument about ethno-epistemic assemblages will run on elsewhere, as the authors themselves acknowledge. Those who are uncomfortable with the necessary decentring of science will continue to find this a problem. Those sympathetic to the aims of authors may find the fluidity of the concept problematic in setting practical working boundaries around research areas spiralling out into global complexity, or delineating power relations between groups which are themselves plural. The breadth of such a slim volume is also weakness - in that there is a schematic quality to much of the discussion, and while listing salient points in an argument is often useful, the number of lists here can be frustrating. This is not an introductory text but it should be read by anyone working in this area and sections would be very useful for teaching undergraduates in related topics

Argument (complex analysis · Context (archaeology · Corporate governance · Engineering ethics · Institution · Management · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Scope (computer science · Social science · Sociology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Law