Abstract
Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) started out (in the Netherlands in the late 1980s) as an attempt to broaden technology developments by including more aspects and more actors, and has been further positioned as a way to overcome the institutionalised division of labour between promotion and control of technology. For newly emerging technologies like nanotechnology, which live on promises, CTA has to address uncertain futures. It does so by analysing dynamics and emerging irreversibilities in a technology domain, identifying “endogenous futures” and creating socio-technical scenarios exploring what could happen. Such scenarios are a platform for interaction between stakeholders in strategy-articulation workshops. Organizing such workshops by CTA agents constitutes a soft intervention in ongoing developments, and contributes to make ongoing co-evolution of science, technology and society more reflexive. The CTA analyst inserts herself in ongoing developments in the domain that is being addressed, to identify what is at stake. This is not just data collection, but already interaction, as a knowledgeable visitor. Such a role has to be earned, for example by offering useful (but also critical) insights based on circulation in the domain and social-science analysis. This constitutes a methodology of inquiry-in-interaction, which increases reflexivity of the developments. It is an essential part of the CTA enterprise.
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Notes
- 1.
This then led technology developers to see TA as “technology harassment”.
- 2.
We note that there is another tradition of TA, in firms and research institutes, where technological options are assessed as to eventual performance and production possibilities and costs. This can be called “technical” TA, to distinguish it from the “public” TA that we discussed here (Rip 2001a). When broader considerations would be taken into account, “technical” TA would become “sociotechnical” TA, and the tools of CTA (see below) could be used by the firms and research institutes, or by consultancies that are commissioned to do “sociotechnical” TA.
- 3.
Note that ‘reflexivity’ here refers to institutions and approaches in society and sectors in society, not to individuals becoming more reflective – even while that is part of overall reflexivity.
- 4.
A well-known precedent is the temporary moratorium on recombinant DNA research, after the 1974 Asilomar meeting. The present call for a moratorium on nano-particle development comes from critical outsiders, not from nanoscientists. A mixed case (early 2012) is the voluntary stop (for 60 days) of bird flu virus research, after the US National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity had required a virology research group in Erasmus University Rotterdam to take out details in their pending publication in Science, because of the risk of misuse.
- 5.
Perspectives, expectations, preferences and positions of various actors/stakeholders will be articulated, i.e. become more explicit, further specified and linked to arguments, findings and values, in interaction and this may lead to scrutiny and assessment.
- 6.
- 7.
Ethical, Legal and Societal Aspects, the “Aspects” are sometimes referred to as Issues (then the acronym becomes ELSI).
- 8.
The term “enactor” can be used for all cases where a project is pursued, and identification occurs so that the world is seen in terms of whether it helps or hinders the project. An actor can be enactor in one case, and comparative selector in another case. An interesting example is the NGO Greenpeace, almost by definition an outsider/comparative selector. But Greenpeace Germany, at one moment, pushed for an environmentally-friendly fridge, and collaborated with scientists and a firm to realize it (Van de Poel 1998: 84–97). So it became an enactor, for the time being.
- 9.
This is often a novel possibility for participants. Moving beyond their own interests and perspectives comes easier to some than others, but it is recognized as a possibility in post-workshop interviews with participants (Parandian 2012). The set-up of a CTA workshop has to facilitate and stimulate this, by making sure various actor perspectives are visible, and possible developments in the real world are considered, for example with the help of sociotechnical scenarios.
- 10.
Marris et al. (2008) have shown this for an Interactive TA exercise about field tests of genetically modified vines in France. Their point is reinforced by what happened subsequently: productive co-construction of the design of the field tests between local stakeholders and researchers, and 5 years later, August 2010, the destruction of the test fields by critics of GMO. In LMC et al. (2010), the story is told from the perspective of the actors involved in the co-construction.
- 11.
Scenarios add substance to the interactions, which is necessary because they are not just about participation and empowerment (which are sometimes taken as goals for CTA, cf. earlier comments on democracy). To serve the change aim of CTA, they must be seen as relevant as well as challenging to the participants. Quite some effort has to be put into the creation of robust socio-technical scenarios. Thus, they become a product in their own right, which can be put to further use, also by participants.
- 12.
The emphasis on choices in ongoing developments is also important to counter the opposite position, that there is no way to predict future impacts of a technology, so better give up on technology assessment and other attempts at anticipation and feedback. This “hard truth” was pushed by Nathan Rosenberg in an OECD workshop on Social Sciences and Innovation (Tokyo, 2000), but it overlooks how present dynamics shape opportunities and constraints for future developments, and are thus a basis for anticipation and feedback (Rip 2001b). The further point is that anticipations need not be correct to be useful in guiding action – think of self-negating prophecies.
- 13.
This network of nanotechnology research institutions focused on the development of nanotechnology instrumentation and approaches for the life sciences (see Robinson 2010).
- 14.
In particular in the Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) project, funded by the US National Science Foundation and led by Erik Fisher (Arizona State University). See Schuurbiers and Fisher (2009).
- 15.
So this is more than participant observation, or anthropologists alternating between insider and outsider positions.
- 16.
Social scientists moving about in the world of a scientific specialty or domain will set the members of that world thinking about what is happening, and about patterns that enable or constrain. This is relevant for the overall CTA goal of increasing reflexivity of co-evolution of technology and society. Moving about in the nano-worlds may have such an effect, but it was not an explicit aim that structured the moving about.
- 17.
A sort of sociological enlightenment in the small, cf. Rip and Groen (2001).
- 18.
Phrased in this way, there is overlap with participatory research approaches (cf. Bergold and Thomas 2012). There, the social scientists have the higher status, while in our case, nano-scientists and policy makers tend to relegate the social scientists to a service role. Thus, building trust will have a different complexion.
- 19.
There is a functional argument: scientists should live in protected spaces, at least to some extent, in order to be productive (Rip 2010a).
- 20.
There are normative issues involved, which can refer to the background goals of CTA, but have also an experimental component, finding out about the issues by doing and learning (cf. also Laurent and Van Oudheusden 2013).
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Rip, A., Robinson, D.K.R. (2013). Constructive Technology Assessment and the Methodology of Insertion. In: Doorn, N., Schuurbiers, D., van de Poel, I., Gorman, M. (eds) Early engagement and new technologies: Opening up the laboratory. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7844-3_3
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