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Context Matters: Promises and Concerns Regarding Nanotechnologies for Water and Food Applications

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Abstract

Expectations in the form of promises and concerns contribute to the sense-making and valuation of emerging nanotechnologies. They add up to what we call ‘de facto assessments’ of novel socio-technical options. We explore how de facto assessments of nanotechnologies differ in the application domains of water and food by examining promises and concerns, and their relations in scientific discourse. We suggest that domain characteristics such as prior experiences with emerging technologies, specific discursive repertoires and user-producer relationships, play a key role in framing expectations of nanotechnology-enabled options. The article concludes by suggesting that domain-specific discourses may lead to undesirable lock-ins into specific de facto assessments pre-structuring anticipatory strategies of actors.

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Notes

  1. In this article we use a rather broad notion of concerns, which does not only refer to risks, but includes concerns about the feasibility of promises as well. Limited attention has, at least to date, been paid to concerns within the sociology of expectations literature [20–23], although generally supposed to fulfil a similar role as promises [1, 22].

  2. Initially we also explored potential sources for non-scientific discourse as for instance industry (association) journals and mass media. However, it turned out to be difficult to find sufficient coverage for a meaningful analysis, indicating that the discourse on nanotechnology for food and water is only emerging. This holds particularly in the case of water. Furthermore, by concentrating on the scientific discourse we avoided the need to account for national specifics in the discourse, which are likely to cross-cut non-scientific discourses.

  3. NANO + WATER + SUPPLY for retrieving water-related articles, and NANOTECHNOLOGY + FOOD for retrieving food-related articles.

  4. To enhance intercoder reliability, analyses of promise-concern statements were discussed and, if necessary, adjusted between the researchers.

  5. In addition, within a domain, the arenas in which expectations are voiced and by whom, will affect the substance of expectations. For instance, the tone of articles in the journal Nature Nanotechnology tends to be more promissory compared to the domain journals. While beyond the scope of the present study, it would be worthwhile to study how assessments differ across spaces in a specific domain of application.

  6. There are additional considerations why ‘nano-tinkering’ with water technologies may be assessed as more desirable than food. Tinkering with food may be considered as unnatural and therefore undesirable, even if much food is nowadays engineered. Purified water may speak to more natural notions of water and therefore desirable.

  7. There are multiple meanings within one domain, but some are particularly salient.

  8. Given the size and scope of our sample the findings should be treated with some caution. Still, core differences have also been corroborated in interviews and talks the authors conducted with experts in the two domains.

  9. For a similar argument in the context of public engagement see [82].

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Dutch NanoNextNL research programme.

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  1. Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Haico te Kulve, Kornelia Konrad, Carla Alvial Palavicino & Bart Walhout

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  1. Haico te Kulve
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Correspondence to Haico te Kulve.

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te Kulve, H., Konrad, K., Alvial Palavicino, C. et al. Context Matters: Promises and Concerns Regarding Nanotechnologies for Water and Food Applications. Nanoethics 7, 17–27 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0168-4

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