Abstract
During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social “impacts” of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is based on research carried out within the Project DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies), funded by the Science and Society Program, 6th Framework Program, European Commission (Project nr. 036719). While gratefully acknowledging the contribution of other research team members to their reflection, the authors are solely responsible for the views, as well as for the flaws, errors or omissions, contained in this paper.
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Carvalho, A., Nunes, J.A. Technology, Methodology and Intervention: Performing Nanoethics in Portugal. Nanoethics 7, 149–160 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0175-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0175-5