Knowledge and Identity are Power

Where previous weeks’ authors have emphasized difference influences behind the incorporation of science and technology into society (or visa versa), Jasonoff takes a slight different approach in her booked Designs on Nature. Civic epistemology is key in her view to understand the interplay between the public assessment of risk, institutions’ role in governance, and the expectation in how state, public, institutions, and science relate to each other—who participates in addition to how and who doesn’t participate.

As stated in the book, science is a deregulated commercial product in US (authority of science). Biotechnology is framed as a product of progress while nature exists for human use. This focus closed many ethical and moral debates; this lack of politics made it appear that there was general acceptance about such policies. Biotechnology in Europe is framed leading to the differences of institutions and relationships. Biotechnology in Europe is seen as needing special public concern along side of a general trust in empirical demonstrations. History has limited the creditability of state’s experience and expertise. Yet, there is even differences between EU member states: Britain focuses on experience (science through legitimate, authorized experts speaking for the people) while Germany focuses on institutional rationality.

Yet, it is interesting how these civic epistemologies are manipulated and used for the benefit of the some. As stated by Jasonoff, “Science cultures are at one and the same time political cultures.” One reason for this given for this is that economic and political powers are increasingly tied to science and technology, threatening science’s impartiality. Additionally, biotechnology policy is commonly embedded in national building and identity. Diagnostic technology creates the wanted inner group and hopes to keep them alive and healthy—just as biometric technology is used to keep the unwanted outside. A technology or science can then be seen as an object of a state identity that leads to quotes like: “Resistance to biotechnology became almost a surrogate for resisting America’s imperial power.”

Nevertheless, all of this is based on creation of knowledge as a resource—whether that knowledge is natural or imported. As many countries moved away from resource based economies, information became the new basis of power and growth. This search of knowledge has shaped economies and public policies in a wide range of areas, but this transition is not smooth. How difference societies have reacted to this bumpy road has lead to the comparative differences observed. Political authority to acquire and use this knowledge needs to come from somewhere and it comes from the immunities and consents of those governed. Furthermore, Ulrich Beck, in Risk Society, described how society is influenced by risk by choosing good risks over bad risks and predicting outcomes, which involves a plethora of information.

What Jasonoff adds to this discourse is giving power to national identity. Last week’s authors discussed the constitutions of a nation/people. Brown discussed the ideas of representation and democracy. National identity, though embedded in these ideas, plays a minor role. Jasonoff bring them back into the forefront.