Abstract
This chapter is an attempt to inspire experimentation with approaches to public engagement about emerging technologies, and takes synthetic biology as a primary site of interest. It does this at a time when the roles of critical scholars in the social sciences and humanities are becoming increasingly well documented for the contributions they make to how synthetic biology is discussed and understood through interdisciplinary collaborations. At the same time, practitioners of diverse forms of public engagement such as artists, designers, and DIYbiologists are not often (though are sometimes) explicitly involved in these collaborative assemblages, despite their abilities to contribute to a diversity of communications within and outside of the field. I connect the communication lessons being learned from interdisciplinary collaborations to public engagement practices on the basis of a “need for experimentation” that is sometimes more visibly exercised by artists, designers and DIYbiologists. I then use writings from philosopher Isabelle Stengers about the abilities of “expert”, “diplomat”, and “idiot” figures to enable the slowing down of thinking in relation to scientific and technological advances in order to explore such “experimentation” in communication. Stengers’ ideas are connected to public engagement in synthetic biology through creative and “experimental” communication practices that open up rather than close down questions about the field. I argue that public engagement practitioners and science communicators who want to slow down the—at times, misguided—public narratives of synthetic biology can look to controversies in interdisciplinary collaborations, and artistic activities in the field, for examples of communications that strive to create space for emergent, rather than decided, narratives about the field.
Keywords
- Synthetic Biology
- Public Engagement
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration
- Social Researcher
- Synthetic Biologist
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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- 1.
There are a variety of questions raised by synthetic biology that circulate in policy and media that extend far beyond its emergence as a “de-skilling” science. These include social justice for the global south, responsible innovation, ontological implications, modes of regulation and governance, its impact on the bio-economy, and more. In this chapter I am using the example of “de-skilling” and the related term of “dual-use” to make a general point about societal concerns, but do not mean to regard these concerns as the only topics that have garnered attention and debate.
- 2.
2014 marked the first year that iGEM had a competitive track for teams whose projects explicitly mobilized art and design in synthetic biology. http://2014.igem.org/Tracks/Art_Design. Accessed 01 Sept 2014.
- 3.
The Kopenlab festival was comprised of “a collaborative space for citizen science, DIYbio, contemporary art and maker culture.” It took place as part of Science in the City during the Euro Science Open Forum, Copenhagen, 2014. http://kopenlab.dk. Accessed 14 June 2014.
- 4.
Genspace has been serving New York City as an outreach centre promoting citizen science since 2009. In 2010 it became the first-ever community biotechnology laboratory with a Biosafety Level One facility. http://genspace.org/. Accessed 05 Sept 2014.
- 5.
Synthetic Aesthetics is an international research project investigating the crossover between art, design, social science and synthetic biology. http://www.syntheticaesthetics.org. Accessed 19 Nov 2014.
- 6.
Biohacking, which includes the DIYbio community, is a heterogenous “scene” that does not adhere to any one movement, mission or aim. At the 2015 PACITA Technology Assessment Conference in Berlin, German biohacker Rüdiger Trojok gave an elucidating talk about the complexities of the biohacker identity. He explained that although biohackers around the world seem to celebrate the non-institutional practice of biotechnology, they are far from a unified community. For example, some groups in North America (more closely aligned with DIYbio) affiliate their work with the possibility for commercialization, while others in Europe and Asia align more closely to an anti-capitalist and activist ethic.
- 7.
Literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin developed a theory of polyphony to describe Dosteovsky’s tendency to write novels wherein his characters would each speak for themselves and not act in service of any other character’s will (Bakhtin and Caryl 1984). This creates the condition that a discussion can never be finalized according to an individual’s views, meaning that a true polyphony constitutes a collection of many voices with each their own distinctiveness. Polyphonous discussions may be aspired to for democratic purposes, so that discourses evolve according to inputs from many voices without any one voice acting in the service of another. Although the processual “de-skilling” of synthetic biology may be one important aspect for the diversification of the field, it is not the sole factor. Long traditions of synthesizing life in fiction, or experimentation to make life from non-living components in chemistry for example have also played in a role in stratifying its polyphony over time.
- 8.
I recently wrote about this idea for The Evolving Culture of Science Engagement, a collaborative research blog between MIT and Culture Kettle. http://www.cultureofscienceengagement.net/blog/2015/2/2/guest-post-embodying-engagement-with-science. Accessed 5 May 2015. Part of this paragraph is excerpted from the post. I am grateful to Peter Linett for the opportunity.
- 9.
Some have questioned the validity of this shift (Myskja et al. 2014).
- 10.
I am thankful to Dr. Kristin Hagen for this comment.
- 11.
http://www.echromi.com/. Accessed 04 March 2015.
- 12.
http://studiolabproject.eu/synthetic-biology. Accessed 04 March 2015.
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Wray, B. (2016). Public Engagement in Synthetic Biology: “Experts”, “Diplomats” and the Creativity of “Idiots”. In: Hagen, K., Engelhard, M., Toepfer, G. (eds) Ambivalences of Creating Life. Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21088-9_9
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