Abstract
Sustainability has emerged as the newly ascendant policy issue of the twenty-first century. While we continue to argue about the true definition of “sustainability” – particularly since it has become a fashionable buzzword for the policy community and related funding agencies – the challenge of converting our present socio-technical system to a “sustainable” system has developed as a new master narrative, inspiring policy discourses both in Europe and the United States.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
On May 10 and 11, 2010, the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars organized with the support of the University of Virginia and the U.S. National Science Foundation, a 2-day workshop to promote discussions between experts from STS, sustainability science and synthetic biology. This chapter is inspired by the discussions that took place on May 10 and 11, 2010.
- 2.
D. Ballon, Opinion – “Synthetic Biology is a key to energy independence,” San Jose Mercury News, 12/15/2008.
- 3.
Idem.
- 4.
Pr. Alison Snow gave her testimony to the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in the session entitled “Benefits and Risks” on July 8, 2010, at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington D.C. The testimony is available at: http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/bioethics/100708.
- 5.
- 6.
Both expressions “governance from outside systems” and engagement “driving on inside system” have been eloquently described by Andy Stirling in the Session “Sustainability and Emerging Technologies” at the 2009 Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4 S), October 29, 2009.
- 7.
This concept of the “Agora” was introduced by Andy Stirling in the Session “Sustainability and Emerging Technologies” at the 2009 Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4 S), October 29, 2009.
- 8.
Both expressions “Sustainability normativity blinkers” and “cauldron of concocting normativities” have been eloquently used by Andy Stirling in the Session “Sustainability and Emerging Technologies” at the 2009 Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4 S), October 29, 2009.
- 9.
Two collaborative lab-scale projects might serve as field work: the Human Practices Laboratory directed by Paul Rabinow within the NSF-sponsored SynBERC project (http://www.synberc.org/content/articles/human-practices); and the Center for Synthetic Biology and Innovation as a collaboration between the BIOS Center (LSE) and the synthetic biology team of Imperial College (http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/synbio/synbio.htm).
- 10.
Sections II and III are based on exchanges and discussions in which I took part during the Workshop “Science, Technology and Sustainability,” held at the National Science Foundation, September 8–9, 2008.
- 11.
Researchers in sustainability science have identified other challenges which pertain to public perceptions, such as cultural practices and social learning (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008).
- 12.
This is the approach applied within the EPSRC-supported project “CHARM” which includes research on electricity consumption. CHARM is coordinated by R. Rettie and K. Burchell, both at Kingston University. See: http://business.kingston.ac.uk/charm.
- 13.
The question “What is it we want to sustain?” was eloquently posed by S. Jasanoff at the Workshop “Science, Technology and Sustainability,” held at the National Science Foundation, September 8–9, 2008.
References
Aho Report, Aho, E., Cornu, J., Georghiou, L., & Subirá, A. (2006). Creating an innovative Europe: European commission report of the independent expert group on R&D and innovation (EUR 22005). Luxembourg: European Commission.
Bauknecht, D., & Kemp, R. (2006). Reflexive governance for sustainable development (pp. 31–56). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Beck, U. (2006). Reflexive Governance: Politics in the Global Risk Society. In J.-P Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive Governance for Sustainable Development (31–56). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Board on Life Sciences: Division on Earth and Life Studies. (2009). A new biology for the 21st century. Washington: The National Academies Press.
Carlson, R. (2001). Open source biology and its impact on industry. IEE Spectrum, 38(5), 15–17.
Cash, D. W., Clark, W. C., Alcock, F., Dickson, N. M., Eckley, N., Guston, D., et al. (2003). Knowledge systems for sustainable development. PNAS, 100(14), 8086–8091.
Dryzek, J. S., Goodin, R. E., Tucker, A., & Reber, B. (2009). Promethean elites encounter precautionary publics: The case of GM foods. Science, Technology and Human Values, 34(3), 263–288.
Fischer, F. (2000). Citizens, experts and the environment: The politics of local knowledge. Chapel Hill: Duke University Press.
Fisher, E., Mahajan, R. L., & Mitcham, C. (2006). Midstream modulation of technology: Governance from within. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 26(6), 485–496.
Gallopin, G. C., Funtowicz, S., O’Connor, M., & Ravetz, J. (2001). Science for the 21st century: From social contract to the scientific core. International Journal of Social Science, 168, 239–250.
Gibbons, M., Nowotny, H., Limoges, C., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary society. London: Sage.
Grin, J. (2006). Reflexive modernization as a governance issue, or: Designing and shaping re-structuration. In J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable development (pp. 57–81)). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Guston, D., David, H., & Sarewitz, D. (2002). Real-time technology assessment. Technology in Society, 24(1–2), 93–109.
Irwin, A. (1995). Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. New York: Routledge Press.
Jamison, A. (2001). The making of green knowledge – environmental politics and cultural transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jamison, A. (2010). In search of green knowledge: A cognitive approach to sustainable development. In S. Moore (Ed.), Pragmatic sustainability: theoretical and practical tools (pp. 68–80). New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://people.plan.aau.dk/~andy/In%20Search%20of%20Green%20Knowledge.doc
Jasanoff, S. (2003). Technologies of humility: Citizen participation in governing science. Minerva, 41(3), 223–244.
Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. London: Routledge Press.
Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on nature: Science and democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jasanoff, S. (2009, May). Governing innovation. Paper presented at the Symposium Knowledge in Question – a symposium on interrogating knowledge and questioning science # 597. Retrieved from http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/597.htm. Accessed Date: July 1, 2010.
Jasanoff, S., & Martello, M. L. (2004). Earthly politics: Local and global in environmental governance. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kasemir, B., Jäger, J., Jaeger, C. C., & Gardner, M. T. (2003). Public participation in sustainability science: A handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. how to follow scientists and engineers in society. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Latour, B. (2004). Politics of nature: How to bring the sciences into democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). From realpolitik to dingpolitik or how to make things public. In B. Latour & P. Weibel (Eds.), Making things public – atmospheres of democracy (pp. 14–43). Germany: ZKM: MIT Press and Karlsruhe.
Lezaun, J., & Soneryd, L. (2007). Consulting citizens: Technologies of elicitation and the mobility of publics. Public Understanding of Science, 16(3), 279–297.
Miller, C. (2005). New civic epistemologies of quantification: Making sense of local and global indicators of sustainability. Science, Technology and Human Values, 16(4), 478–500.
Miller, C., & Edwards, P. N. (Eds.). (2001). Changing the atmosphere: Expert knowledge and environmental governance. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Miller, C., Sarewitz, D., & Light, A. (Eds.). Report of a workshop at the national science foundation on Science, technology, and sustainability: Building a research agenda. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation. Retrieved September 8–9, 2008, from http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/ses/sts/Science_Technology_and_Sustainability_Workshop_Rpt.pdf.
Norton, B. (2005). Sustainability: A philosophy of adaptive ecosystem management. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pahl-Wostl, C., Tàbara, J. D., Bouwen, R., Craps, M., Dewulf, A., Mostert, E., et al. (2008). The importance of social learning and culture for sustainable resources management. Ecological Economics, 64(3), 484–495.
Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (Eds.). (2008). Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Rip, A. (2006). A co-evolutionary approach to reflexive governance – and its ironies. In J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable development (pp. 82–101). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Rodemeyer, M. (2009). New life, old bottles: Regulating first-generation products of synthetic biology. Synbio 2. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Sarewitz, D. (2005). This won’t hurt a bit: Assessing and governing rapidly advancing technologies in a democracy. In M. Rodemeyer, D. Sarewitz, & J. Wilsdon (Eds.), The future of technology assessment. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Shaw, A., Sheppard, S., Burch, S., Flanders, D., Wiek, A., Carmichael, J., et al. (2009). Making local futures tangible – synthesizing, downscaling, and visualizing climate change scenarios for participatory capacity building. Global Environmental Change, 19(4), 447–463.
Smith, A. (2005). The alternative technology movement: An analysis of its framing and negotiation of technology development. Human Ecology Review, 12(2), 106–119.
Smith, A., & Stirling, A. (2008). Socio-ecological resilience and socio-technical transitions: Critical issues for sustainability governance (STEPS Working Paper 8). Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Stirling, A. (2005). Opening up or closing down: Analysis, participation and power in the social appraisal of technology. In M. Leach, I. Scoones, & B. Wynne (Eds.), Science and citizens: Globalization and the challenge of engagement (pp. 218–231). London: Zed.
Stirling, A. (2006). Precaution, foresight and sustainability: Reflection and reflexivity in the governance of science and technology. In J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable development (pp. 225–272). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Stirling, A. (2008). ‘Opening up’ and ‘closing down’: Power, participation, and pluralism in the social appraisal of technology. Science, Technology and Human Values, 33(2), 262–294.
Stirling, A. (2009). Direction, distribution and diversity! Pluralising progress in innovation, sustainability and development (STEPS Working Paper 32). Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Voβ, J.-P., & Kemp, R. (2006). Sustainability and reflexive governance: Introduction. In J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable development (pp. 3–28). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Wilsdon, J. (2007, October 8–10). Public engagement in science. Report of the Science in Society Session, Portuguese Presidency Conference – The Future of Science and Technology in Europe, Lisbon (EUR 23334). Luxembourg: European Commission.
Wynne, B. (2005). Risk as globalizing “democratic” discourse? framing subjects and citizens. In M. Leach, I. Scoones, & B. Wynne (Eds.), Science and citizens: Globalization and the challenge of engagement (pp. 66–82). London: Zed Books.
Wynne, B. (2007). Public participation in science and technology: Performing and obscuring a political-conceptual category mistake. East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 1(1), 99–110.
Wynne, B. (2009). Daring to imagine. Paper presented at the symposium knowledge in question – A symposium on interrogating knowledge and questioning science # 597. Retrieved from http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/597/597_brian_wynne.htm. Accessed Date: July 1, 2010
Wynne, B., Callon, M., Eduarda Gonçalves, M., Jasanoff, S., Jepsen, M., Joly, P.B., Konopasek, Z., May, S., Neubauer, C., Rip, A., Siune, K., Stirling, A., & Tallacchini, M. (2007b). Taking European knowledge society seriously: European Commission Report of the Independent Expert Group on Science and Governance (EUR 22700). Luxembourg: European Commission.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and European Union
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pauwels, E. (2011). The Value of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to Sustainability Research: A Critical Approach Toward Synthetic Biology Promises. In: Jaeger, C., Tàbara, J., Jaeger, J. (eds) European Research on Sustainable Development. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19202-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19202-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-19201-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-19202-9
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)