http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8269 2013-05-23T20:05:44Z 2013-05-23T20:05:44Z Ratner, Helene http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8691 2013-05-06T06:43:16Z 2013-05-06T00:00:00Z

Anthropology as multi-natural ontology? Ratner, Helene As her title indicates, Marianne de Laet suggests that social epistemology could be thought of as anthropology, in terms of how this mode of knowing has helped flesh out the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. She does so firstly, by accounting for how anthropological methods and concepts have contributed to science and technology studies (STS) by providing an alternative to “believing the natives” i.e., scientists, hence challenging positivist and objectivist accounts of science. She then specifies selected analytical insights of anthropology. The concepts ‘culture’ and ‘practice’, she argues, enable us to learn how “knowledge is social in an epistemic sense” (2012, 421). She concludes her argument by questioning the distinction between epistemology and ontology, maintaining that anthropology is social epistemology. De Laet touches several key debates in the history of STS and much of her commentary on the sociality of knowledge is difficult to disagree with. There are however, also some elements in her argument with which I wish to engage critically. These include the relationship between anthropology and STS and the relationship between the concepts of culture and ontology. I will do so by drawing my inspiration from a contemporary a debate across STS and anthropology that — like de Laet — regards entanglements of epistemology and ontology, practice, and materiality. This project is also known as post- ANT and empirical philosophy in STS (Mol 2002; Gad and Bruun Jensen 2010, 55-80; Law and Hassard 1999) and lateral, multi-natural and ontological engagements in anthropology (Maurer 2005; Riles 2000; Strathern 2004 [1991]; Carrithers et al. 2010, 152-200; Viveiros de Castro 2004, 463-484). De Laet mentions some of the same sources. I will focus my commentary on these debates’ implications for the concept of culture and “our terminological tinkering” (2012, 420). My aim is to provide a different account of what anthropology has to offer STS and, as a consequence, to keep some interesting tensions open between the conceptual and the empirical, between “us” and “them”, which I believe de Laet resolves too quickly.

2013-05-06T00:00:00Z Horst, Maja Irwin, Alan http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8268 2011-09-08T07:00:18Z 2011-02-18T00:00:00Z

Nations at Ease with Radical Knowledge Horst, Maja; Irwin, Alan In response to the recent troubled history of risk-related technological development in Europe, one institutional reaction has been to advocate public deliberation as a means of achieving broad societal consensus over socio-scientific futures. We focus on ‘consensusing’ and the expectation of consensus, and consider both their roots and their performative consequences. We argue that consensus should be seen not simply as the absence of disagreement but as a particular political and ideological formation. We consider and explore the Danish model based on the folkelig concept of the common good, before turning to the wider European movement towards consensus-building. As presented here, consensusing becomes a focus for political contestation but also for nation- and institution-building. Rather than evaluating deliberation solely in terms of its short-term instrumental effects, consensusing should also be understood as performative of national and inter-national identity.

2011-02-18T00:00:00Z Horst, Maja http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8270 2011-05-25T09:22:48Z 2011-02-18T00:00:00Z

Collective Closure? Horst, Maja Developments in biotechnology have sparked a number of social controversies during the last decades and it has been common to understand public debate as a necessary prerequisite for the ability to deal with these controversies. This is particularly true in the case of Denmark, where public debate has been taking place for more than 25 years, and the paper uses the Danish example to argue that controversies about biotechnology intersect with fundamental political discussions about order and control in today’s knowledge society. Inspired by cultural theory and the work of Mary Douglas, it is proposed that arguments about biotechnology are justified by reference to particular articulations of social order. Her four notions of social order are identified in the analysis of a sample of arguments from four major Danish newspapers. On the basis of this typology, the paper examines the broad discursive consensus in favour of public debate and participatory exercises regarding the social responses to biotechnology. It does, however, simultaneously point to inherent tensions in the expectations towards public debate and its role in the creation of solutions to controversies over science and technology.

2011-02-18T00:00:00Z