Last week(end) I was at the Science in Public 2012 conference at the University College London, which took place on 20th and 21st of July. I enjoyed the conference very much as it was not too crowded and still filled with many interesting talks and people – I am a bit in favour of these little conference compared to ones with thousand(s of) people. Compared to this conference the upcoming 4S/EASST conference in Copenhagen in October 2012 will probably become much more like what the Olympics-induced congestion jam and the overcrowded tube looked like, that caused me to miss my flight back home to Vienna on Monday morning just by 10 minutes. Well perhaps I can at least better get ahead of the conference programme in Copenhagen then. But back to London first.
In this blog post I want to present you a some of my subjective conference highlights, as well as some reflections on my own presentation that I gave there. As this post is a bit longer I give you here just the contents overview, and if you find anything interesting go for more and jump to the specific sections:
- Reflections on my own presentation
- Opening talks
- Session A3 – Engagement with science
- Session B2 – Emerging Technologies
- Keynote on openness of science
- Session C3 – Representations of science
- Session D2 – Interfaces and Knowledge Transfer
- Session E1 – Scientists’ experiences in different public contexts
- Further reports
In any case my reports here are often merely my interpretations of what was presented, and I have missed some and overemphasized on others. Well, in the end it is what I just found relevant to my own research interests, and what my sparse time at the moment permitted me to write – because just a day after I came back from London, I already headed off to some remote area for a week-long seminar where we don’t have internet, not even cell phone network (which is great for me and our group work, only not so much for my blogging activity) – and I have to use sparse in-between times to write this and put it online. So, if you want to catch up with some other views on the conference head down for the last section on “Further reports”, where I have linked to other sources by other conference participants (if you find other interesting sources or have written something yourself and want it linked to, just leave me a comment).
Reflections on my own presentation
I presented my paper in one of the first parallel sessions, so I could get over with it and enjoy the rest of the conference. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous despite my several test presentations home in Vienna, which several friends and colleagues were so kind to endure. Well, at least it was my first ‘real’ presentation at a ‘real scientific’ conference, which is of course somewhat different from speaking in self-organized seminars, workshops, symposia and the like. Even in context of conferences like the Science in Public 2012, where usually a lot of lovely and critical people are, it nevertheless is always a form of exposing oneself to the (scientific) establishment. Well, I hope I could manage the tricky path between following the (social-)scientific codes and being critical of our own practices, especially in those cases where they in the end do not differ that much from what we are ourselves criticizing in the (other) (techno)sciences.
I already have posted the transcript and the slides of my presentation in my last blog post. If you want to comment on my own work I would suggest to use the comment section over there and to use the comment section in this post more for comments and discussions regarding the conference at all.
What I have tried to point out in my talk is that it might enrich us in STS and the social sciences in general to look more in detail to participatory practices on a concrete technoscientific level. And so far I could not present very much specific insights myself yet. This will be the goal of my MA thesis, that I have to finalize in the next months. So far I only could present some contexts and suggest directions we can head for.
Here I am also very grateful to my commentators, especially Karen Bultitude and Georgina Voss, who pointed out that a more fine-grained analysis might be necessary as well as a focus on the processes how different publics are invited. This is exactly what I would like to do actually, only that I still would need more time and I would need to find Participatory Design (PD) projects that I could follow in-situ. So far, I only could draw on interviews and project reports. And I do have indeed a tendency to stay on abstract, theoretical levels of analysis. These comments encouraged me again to go on with my empirical work. So thank you for that. I would also like to thank those people who came up to me afterwards to leave me their contacts and point to other people working in similar contexts.
Another very interesting question was passed to all three presenters in the session. It was a question on what the inherent democratic aspects are in the contexts we have researched. My answer to that was that PD practices are probably not necessarily democratic per-se, or in themselves, but that they usually try to enable democratic processes. Richard Watermeyer then also took up this word “enabling” in context of what he has investigated (see below). This might generally be a perspective with which we can also self-reflect on our own practices as STSers, social scientists and humanities researchers: to ask ourselves in how far we are enabling democratic processes in other and our own contexts. This is also a theme that (retrospectively) will come up in several other talks at the conference. So let me start here with telling you my personal journey through the conference.
For more details and information also look up the programme and the book of abstracts.
Opening talks
The opening plenary talks where given PechaKucha style, which was a very nice way to draw out some contextual themes of the conference and to open up a lot of questions, therefore stimulating reflections and discussions. Two points made in those open plenary talks I felt especially related also to my research questions.
First, Martin Bauer from London School of Economics pointed out that despite all research on public engagement and 20 years of work in Public Understanding of Science (the journal has its 20-years-anniversary) we still cannot clearly tell if the public opinion should be more framed as a trouble or as resource. Here I’d say of course that it is both and it will be more of the one or the other, depending on context. But then again, we miss something if we frame it in this dichotomy between resource or trouble. Doing that means basically to take a science’s perspective instead of reflecting the science-society relationship in a way that takes in different situated standpoints. If public opinion is just resource or trouble, this means that it has to be either exploited or somehow kept out. But public opinion might also be just a necessity – at least if we want to maintain or foster democratic processes. So the question then is not how to best use (or ban it), but how to best facilitate public opinion formation on technoscientific issues. This angle shifts our focus then onto practices, tools and methods of public engagement – something we perhaps should ourselves provide to public actors.
The other point was made by Charlotte Sleigh from University of Kent, when she compared how science funding was organized in the early modernity to now. While today science, especially big sciences often have to present some fancy curious mysteries to get funded, in the former times where science had to convince certain patrons. The public(s) had a different function then. Today we have political decision that have to be legitimated to voter, back then there were public audiences that actively validated science through attending public experiments. So this perhaps also points towards the potential to let publics participate in concrete technoscientific research, as I have framed it in my talk, even if it is only in form of being there, when science actually happens. We could start to think about many different forms how this might look like in different sciences.
Session A3 – Engagement with science
After the opening talks I was in session A3 on Engagement with science chaired by Alice Bell. The first talk was given by Richard Watermeyer from Cardiff University. He presented his observations at ‘Langley Academy’, which is “UK’s only science school dedicated to the use of museum and gallery
pedagogy ”, that uses a narrative of the “school as a museum” to foster STEM engagement. In this school students and their lives are of central concern for the working of the school. The school tries to build a cohesive narrative where science meshes in with the ordinary lives of students. It also strongly facilitates principles of open democracy, e.g. through students councils. And while the student population is not one of traditional STEM students, but rather with lower socio-economic backgrounds, this approach seems to motivate students to really engage with STEM. In this sense, and by planning the school around students instead of just placing students around a school, it enables people who are traditionally excluded from STEM contexts and debates to partake in them. I found this presentation especially interesting, because it somewhat reflects also what I have encountered with computer science at the university level. It seems that student participation is also one of the many broader aspects of participatory approaches to technoscience. And it also points towards the fact that publics are not just there but that they are made.
The next talk then was given by Beverly Gibbs from University of Nottingham (which will be hosting the Science in Public 2013 conference). She talked about scientific celebration and gave an account of science festivals in Scotland and how they could be understood as a new forms and tools of informal engagement. Curiously enough those festivals started of more for reasons of economical development. So, here sciences places themselves in public, but we still know little about potentials of those public places (or placements).
Following this, I then gave my presentation, which I have linked to above. One of the interesting audience questions that was posed to all three of us was whether we encountered any about bottom-up processes, because in all of our example the engagement is facilitated by established (scientific) organisations/groups and the public is only invited to participate (or forced to do so, like in the school case, even if the specific form might be preferable over other more traditional forms). A common answer I suppose was, that these events of course cannot substitute bottom-up processes, but that they might open up opportunities, especially in order for publics to become aware of important issues, so that bottom-up processes might then emerge. I think for my case this is particularly so, because there is seldom policy debate in the computer sciences and only very specific already institutionalized publics (or strong ones, as Nancy Fraser would put it – more on that in my upcoming post next week), like digital civil rights groups are engaged in context of very specific topics (e.g. ACTA, e-voting, internet surveillance). So in some sense to enable bottom-up processes of public engagement in computer science, there first have to emerge publics that are aware of their stakes and opportunities regarding participation in specific technoscientific debates or practices.
After this session I went to the session B2 on Emerging Technologies chaired by Simon Lock.
Session B2 – Emerging Technologies
Lisa Nocks from New Jersey Institute of Technology talked about humanoids, science fiction and public perception. She mentioned three big sci-fi ideas, that are also fueling certain scientific developments. This are 1) android servants, 2) extra-terrestrial exploration and colonization and 3) synthetic life. In her talk she focused on the first category, or more specifically on humanoid robots. This talk was very inspiring and presented several interesting historical snippets, from the general idea of the Golem over the digesting duck to the steam man in the late 19th century (that later of course became electric man), as well as a lot more in the 20th century, like the Japanese Astro Boy (1950 to ’52). Especially in Japan demographic changes additionally fueled developments of humanoid robots in the late 20th century. As a fan of feminist and queer science fiction myself, I very much enjoyed this talk and the discussion. The main sci-fi tropes still seem to be very androcentric and beyond that anthropocentric. It seems that not much has changed since Donna Haraway wrote the A manifesto for cyborgs in 1985.
Another interesting talk in this session was given by Elpida Prasopoulou from University of Essex. She talked about the scientification of identity, which is co-produced with new biometric technologies. Because those technologies are often applied especially to marginalized groups, there is not much public contestation. Those publics that would have strong influence on such issues are seldom affected in negative ways. And in ethical discussions, that are mostly led at an EU policy level, broader publics are not included, because this issue is deemed an experts issue, in which only professional ethicists as well as politicians and technoscientists may take part.
Keynote on openness of science
At the end of this first conference day James Wilsdon gave his keynote address on openness in/of science and its meaning for science in public. He pointed out that it is apparently en vogue to be open about everything and that open science pops up everywhere, on the one side demanded by science enthusiasts or critical publics, on the other side by parts of the scientific establishment. Nevertheless, it is important to not overlook questions of participation and engagement. In the end we always have to ask tho whom it is open, if it is praised as open. To just put out a lot of information does not necessarily enable publics to participate, it might even have the function of closing debates.
Session C3 – Representations of science
The first morning session that I visited was chaired by Simon Lock. The first presentation was given by Hsiang-Fu Huang from UCL on “the evolution of astronomical displays from orrery shows to modern planetariums ”. It was a nice insight into the broad range of science edutainment, that was present in the 18th and 19th century. The second presentation was given by Alison Adam from University of Salford on myths about Mummy Wheat and the Mummy’s Curse and how science had its stakes in the generation of new myths and tradition of old ones.
Although the former two talks were very interesting, I was much more taken away by the presentation of Angela Cassidy from Imperial College and Georgina Voss from Brighton University (who did work on that with Simon Lock from UCL, who chaired this session). Under the title Sexual Natures? (Re)Presenting Sexuality in the Museum they presented their insights into the organization of the Sexual Nature exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. The most interesting aspects to me where those that pointed toward the inherent normative character of the exhibition. There was a lot of confusion and a constant re-de-construction of human and animal sexuality. And while the animals were portrayed rather fleshly, the smaller exhibition part that focused on humans did primarily display issues about relationships. Although the part on human sexuality was outsourced by the museum curators, in the end decisions relied on the strategy to use this exhibition in order to reach an audience between 18 and 35 that would otherwise perhaps not go to the museum. So the normative character of the exhibition (heteronormative as well as regarding human sexuality in general) was based on several aspects. What is interesting is, that despite inviting different experts to devise different parts of the exhibition, in the end decisions were strongly based on focus groups with intended audiences. This points to certain ambiguities of public engagement. The outcome of such practices might be even contradictory if a different set of publics might be engaged.
Session D2 – Interfaces and Knowledge Transfer
The second morning session that I went to was chaired by Hauke Reisch and focused on interfaces between sciences and publics as well as knowledge transfer. As Bipana Bantawa mentioned on twitter, it is really time to move beyond ‘transfer’. The presentations in this session in some sense tried to highlight potentials for doing so. First Norma Morris from UCL asked if research participants might form potential publics for two-way dialogues on science. In context of medical research, which was her focus, the research participants usually have a very passive role. Yet it was feasible to redesign the research practices in a way that extended / opened a dialogue beyond the usual minimal interaction between researchers and participants. While the participants went into the project rather whole-heartedly, scientists usually were more reserved. One argument for not engaging more thoroughly in dialogue was a professional ethic of responsibility that based on old medical codes of ethics in which research participants where deemed rather passive and where the medical practitioner had to look after the well-being of her patients. So based on these insights arose the conclusion that in order to make the relationship between researchers and participants more democratic, one has to make the participants more active, or framed from another angle, to more actively facilitate participation and dialogue. Here social scientists can take the role of mediators. One goal of such mediators then always should be to make oneself dispensable (when processes work for themselves).
Another presentation that inspired me was given by Adam Bencard from University of Copenhagen whose agenda was to “re-materialize science communication”. As science communication (like communication in general) is always an embedded practice we should be aware of the agency of objects. Beyond others Bencard mentioned new feminist materialisms that point us to significant aspects of materiality, things and affects, which then feed back into new subject positions. He later on focused on Object-oriented ontology (OOO), which is an internet-born philosophy that was “stamped out in the blogosphere”. As Sophia Collins correctly remarked on twitters the mentioned OOO protagonists are all white male academics. But of course that is also not a new phenomenon, and sadly enough it might still be so for many more years. Nevertheless what I found interesting in the OOO-inspired talk is the concept of philosophical carpentry, which I will have to explore in more detail. Basically it aims towards not just thinking about things but actually doing things – something we do anyway, even if we are supposedly just thinking about things; the crucial point is to acknowledge the performativity and material agency and to also aim towards changing things. This is something which I find rather compatible with feminist epistemologies on the one side and practical approaches to participation as they are found in Participatory Design.
Session E1 – Scientists’ experiences in different public contexts
For the last parallel session of the conference I really had a hard time to decide on which of the two I should attend, because both spoke very much to my research interests. In the end I went to the session chaired by Karen Bultitude.
Ann Grand from University of the West of England (who worked on that with Karen Bultitude, Clare Wilkinson and Alan Winfield) spoke about “seeing the strangeness of science”. At this presentations core was ‘open science’ and what it might mean and how different forms of open science might lead to very different (strange) perceptions of it in the public. So first it had to be said that open science does not only mean the sharing of resources but also to make science accessible to the public – to make them able to contribute to science themselves. We have to see and acknowledge a continuum of openness in science. So as a metaphor I would say we have to understand it not just like an open book, or even an open library, or open internet databases, but much more put also emphasis on aspects of an open workshop or an open factory. And beyond that Ann Grand pointed out that we also have to think about how we can facilitate not only the participation of the ‘usual suspects’ but of a variety of diverse groups. And of course this might lead to conflicts, but in the end open contestation and controversies show the workings of science in public. It shows the character of science, that it actually is about arguments (empirical and theoretical). So the conclusion from this presentation was that we cannot just put data out there. We not only have to produce “intelligent” data, but we rather have to “make it intelligible”.
Emma King from University of Edinburgh the presented a “case study of public outreach during the development of a novel stem cell therapy”. What I found interesting in this project was, that the public outreach activity was also actually clearly framed as public outreach and not public engagement. In this case then the political agenda becomes much more transparent than in so-called public engagement exercises, that still often are just forms of pseudo-participation.
The last talk then was given by Melanie Smallman and Kajsa-Stina Magnusson from UCL who asked if “non-policy related public engagement is useful” and how we might achieve a “symmetry of learning for scientists”. Their case was a Guardian life debate on nanotechnology in January 2012 and a central question was if the scientists have learned anything from this activity. In general scientists seem to think that there is not anything significant in terms of their research which they might learn from publics. They often take roles of lecturers, advocates or defenders. So there is still a strong deficit model in place. A significant insight of this presentation then was, that these popular settings for science and public engagement might actually not be such good settings to really foster mutual learning, that is a symmetry of learning for scientists and publics.
Further reports
So, here I have presented some rather subjective retellings and interpretations of what I experienced at the Science in Public 2012 conference. If you have any questions or comments, or if you find that I was rather inaccurate at certain points, please let me know, so I can correct that.
If you want to read insights by others too, there are a lot of people who did use twitter and other public online communication frequently throughout the conference. On twitter you can search for entries with the hash-tag #sip2012. Some of the people I followed at the conference through twitter are:
So far I also know of a Beverly Gibbs, who also wrote a reflective report of the conference on her blog.
If you know other sources, please write a comment below, so other readers might also look up those.