Christopher Groves | Cardiff University (original) (raw)

Books by Christopher Groves

This report presents a synthesis of research and analysis from the Energy Biographies project, ba... more This report presents a synthesis of research and analysis from the Energy Biographies project, based at Cardiff University from 2011-2015.

In an age where issues like climate change and the unintended consequences of technological innov... more In an age where issues like climate change and the unintended consequences of technological innovation are high on the ethical and political agenda, questions about the nature and extent of our responsibilities to future generations have never been more important, yet simultaneously so difficult to answer. This book takes a unique approach to the problem by drawing on diverse traditions of thinking about care (including developmental psychology, phenomenology and feminist ethics) to explore the nature and meaning of our relationship with the future. Demonstrating that many influential perspectives on intergenerational ethics, including positions advanced by John Rawls, Brian Barry, and Ulrich Beck are undermined by problems relating to uncertainty, it shows that an approach based on care ethics can confront the uncertain future successfully and give a viable account of the nature and scope of future-oriented responsibilities.

Papers by Christopher Groves

Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2014

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the... more In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop
on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important
tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

Futures, 2019

To understand how the legacy of urban regeneration promised by events like the London 2012 Olympi... more To understand how the legacy of urban regeneration promised by events like the London 2012 Olympics is constructed, the masterplanning process is analysed as an assemblage of heterogeneous elements that construct futures as knowable and actionable objects in the present. Building on recent applications of actor-network theory to planning studies, the value of the concept of ‘anticipatory assemblage’ is demonstrated. The example of London 2012 masterplanning underlines how masterplanning as an anticipatory activity is performed through networks which are formed through the circulation of expectations and visions as networked ‘intermediaries’. Through these intermediaries, ordered processes are set in motion, and requirements for subsequent activities established. Further, it is shown how this use of concepts of anticipatory assemblages can help understand the political significance of masterplanning in the present, which depends on how organised forms of anticipation re-order social and material relationships in the present, including some actors as participants within anticipatory assemblages and excluding others.

Sustainability Science, 2019

Historically, concepts of sustainability have been articulated in response to a perceived crisis ... more Historically, concepts of sustainability have been articulated in response to a perceived crisis within central modernist narratives about progress. As such, they are not just environmental concepts, but ethical and political ones. At the same time, they have often been accused of being too wedded to many of the same assumptions as these central narratives of modernity, and indeed inviting the hubristic mistakes of modernity to be resurrected in the form of pretentions to global stewardship or ‘managing the planet’. I respond to some recent critiques of key conceptual elements encountered within sustainability narratives by articulating an approach to imagining sustainability that draws on D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the ‘holding environment’, and which acknowledges the otherness of the future and of nature, while also affirming responsibilities towards both.

Futures, 2019

Miller et al. (eds) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 4th edition. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017

The practices of science and technology are saturated with expectations, promises, and prospectiv... more The practices of science and technology are saturated with expectations, promises, and prospective claims. What is more, future-oriented representations affect scientific and technological practices and constitute an important reference point for the governance of science and technology. The chapter reviews literature from science and technology studies (STS) and related fields on future-oriented representations and anticipatory practices. The first group of studies is concerned with understanding the performativity, shaping and dynamics of expectations in science and technology building on concrete empirical cases, and largely relates to the sociology of expectations. In a second step, the chapter moves to research which addresses different forms of constructing and relating to the future and how these forms are embedded in broader, historically varying modes of future orientation that characterize cultures and societies, drawing on the sociology of time. Finally, the chapter reviews approaches which turn the analytical understanding of the importance of future-oriented representations in a more interventionist perspective, by highlighting anticipatory practices where the future is intentionally mobilized by STS scholars who seek to intervene in the governance of science and technology.

In recent years, debates about energy justice have become increasingly prominent. However, the qu... more In recent years, debates about energy justice have become increasingly
prominent. However, the question of what is at stake in claims about energy
justice or injustice is a complex one. Signifying more than simply the fair
distribution of quantities of energy, energy justice also implies issues of
procedural justice (participation) and recognition (acknowledgement of diverse
values constitutive of ways of life). It is argued that this requires an
acknowledgement of why energy use matters in everyday life.

Data from the Energy Biographies project at Cardiff University is used to explore
connections between the relational texture of everyday life and the ethical
significance of energy. In particular, embodiment, attachment and narrative are
shown making a significant contribution to the implicit and explicit modes in
which different ways of using energy are evaluated in the course of everyday life.
Using multimodal and biographical qualitative social science allows these
implicit forms of evaluation to become more tangible, along with the
relationships between them. Conceiving of users of energy as subjects with
biographies, with attachments, and as engaged bodily in energy using practices
can open up, it is suggested, different ways of enacting the procedural and
recognition aspects of energy justice.

Journal of Responsible Innovation

Second generation biofuels derived from agricultural lignocellulosic waste represent what is hope... more Second generation biofuels derived from agricultural lignocellulosic waste represent what is hoped to be a significant technological, but also socioeconomic advance beyond the shortcomings of first generation biofuels (chiefly bioethanol). The development of advanced catalytic techniques is a central part of making such technologies viable. However, assessing the potential socioeconomic significance of the socio-technical arrangements necessary to translate such fundamental techniques into mature technologies is also a central part of shaping the development of second generation technologies in a way that both avoids the shortcomings of first generation fuels and ensures that future developments are genuinely responsive to social needs. A pilot project is described in which a deliberative workshop with farmers in Wales is used to explore the potential societal impacts of novel nanocatalysis methods for the production of lignocellulosic biofuels developed by members of the research team. Using risk-and benefit-ranking/issue mapping methodologies, the workshop examined the potential future role of bioeconomies of different scales, in which second generation biofuels play a significant part, in transforming rural communities. Grounded scepticism from workshop participants delineated key socio-technical issues that will be highly consequential for the development of second-generation technologies, thus laying the ground for subsequent planned work on responsible innovation and nanocatalytic methods of biofuel production.

Waste has often been a target of literature and policy promoting pro-environmental behaviour. How... more Waste has often been a target of literature and policy promoting pro-environmental behaviour. However, little attention has been paid to how subjects interpret and construct waste in their daily lives. In this paper we develop a synthesis of practice theory and psycho-social concepts of attachment and transitional space to explore how biographically patterned relationships and attachments to practice shape subjects understandings of resource consumption and disposal. Deploying biographical interview data produced in the [project], we illustrate how tangible, intersubjective and interdependent experiences rub up against cultural and behavioural norms, reshaping the meanings and strategies through which subjects interpret and manage waste.

Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has inform... more Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has informed recent work in science and technology studies on the sociology of expectations. But anticipation, as a capacity or characteristic, is not solely manifested in the form of representations, even where such representations of the 'not yet' are performative in nature. It also comprises material capacities, technological, biophysical and affective in nature. The politics of anticipation is shaped by how these symbolic and material capacities, and the forms of agency they make possible, are distributed. As anticipation is an environmentally distributed capacity, it is suggested that the politics of anticipation is also an environmental politics. A conceptual framework for analysing anticipation as comprised of environmental capabilities is introduced, and fleshed out using a case study of energy infrastructure planning from the UK. Key elements of this framework include the concepts of anticipatory assemblages and future horizons or 'styles' of anticipation. Working through the case study as an empirical example of a conflict concerning the politics of anticipation and of 'environments', it is demonstrated how the relationships between styles of anticipation are materially constitutive of such conflicts.

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has affirmed the value of ‘inclusion’ and ‘responsivene... more Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has affirmed the value of ‘inclusion’ and ‘responsiveness’ as institutional virtues necessary to ensure that reflexivity towards the social priorities behind innovation processes is made possible. It is argued that this affirmation links RRI to knowledge politics in other domains (e.g. environmental justice and the politics of development). It is suggested that lessons regarding inclusion and responsiveness can be drawn from these domains, focusing on the ways in which marginalised perspectives on need and vulnerability, once articulated, can help reconstitute the public sphere in which social priorities are defined. Three case studies are used to explore how entanglements of needs, vulnerabilities, identity and agency are vital to understanding the impacts of innovation and change more generally. It is argued that social science methodologies sensitised to such entanglements are necessary to help constitute a space of inclusion and responsiveness characterised, not by assumptions about idealised rational forms of deliberation, but by styles of communication that recognise vulnerability.

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2013

ABSTRACT Development of effective participatory mechanisms within infrastructure planning governa... more ABSTRACT Development of effective participatory mechanisms within infrastructure planning governance has been dependent on how far the outputs of participatory processes have an impact upon strategic policy priorities. However, neoliberal modes of governance are characterised by 'recentralisation' within arms-length regulatory bodies and private corporations. Tensions between participatory governance and recentralisation are exemplified by the relationship between energy privatisation and energy infrastructure planning. With this study we examine these tensions using a case study of a critical infrastructure project in the UK, the South Wales Gas Pipeline. Findings confirm arguments in the literature that siting conflicts often centre on policy issues as much as local concerns. The study reveals that the neoliberal recentralisation of some governance functions exacerbates such conflicts. We argue that, although new efforts to secure effective participation in neoliberal regimes are necessary, they will face obstacles in the form of risk-based governance structures, as exemplified by the privatised energy sector.

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the... more In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘ResponsibleInnovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key
reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

Journal of Responsible Innovation

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the... more In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

It has been argued that social technology assessment requires critique of the ‘worlds’ implicated... more It has been argued that social technology assessment requires critique of the ‘worlds’ implicated in the future imaginaries through which expectations take shape around new technologies. Qualitative social science research can aid deliberation by exploring the meanings of technologies within everyday practices, as is demonstrate by Yolande Strengers’ ethnographic work on everyday energy use and imaginaries of ‘smartness’. In this paper, we show how a novel combination of narrative interviews and multimodal methods can help in exploring future imaginaries through the lens of biographical experiences of socio-technical changes in how energy is used domestically. In particular, this approach can open up a critical space around future socio-technical imaginaries of smartness and convenience by exploring the investments that individuals have in different forms of engagement with the world and the relationship between these forms and particular technologies. Using a psychosocial framework that draws on theoretical resources from science and technology studies, we show how these investments can lead to shifts in the meaning of taken-for granted assumptions about the meaning of concepts like convenience, and how valued forms of subjectivity may be conceptualised as emerging out of the ‘friction’ of engagement with the world.

Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2014

Futures, 2019

Sustainability Science, 2019

Futures, 2019

Miller et al. (eds) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 4th edition. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017

Journal of Responsible Innovation

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2013

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the... more In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘ResponsibleInnovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key
reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

Journal of Responsible Innovation

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the... more In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

Science, Technology and Human Values, Oct 6, 2015

The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable soci... more The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable society poses questions about how such far-reaching social change can be brought about. In recent years, lifecourse transitions have been identified by a range of researchers as opportunities for policy and other actors to intervene to change how individuals use energy, taking advantage of such disruptive transitions to encourage individuals to be reflexive towards their lifestyles and how they use the technological infrastructures on which they rely. Such identifications, however, employ narratives of voluntary change which take an overly optimistic change of how individuals experience lifecourse transitions, and ignore effects of experiences of unresolved or unsuccessful transitions. Drawing on narrative interview data from the [Project Title] project, we explore three case studies where effects of such unresolved transitions are significant. Using the concept of liminal transition as developed by Victor Turner, we examine instances where ‘progressive’ narratives of energy use reduction clash with other ‘narrative genres’ used to make sense of change. These clashes show how narratives which view lifecourse transitions as opportunities ignore the challenges that such transitions may pose to individual identity and thereby to interventions which view individuals as agents of change.

Environmental Politics, Jul 7, 2015

Theorists have argued that environmental justice requires more than just the fair distribution of... more Theorists have argued that environmental justice requires more than just the fair distribution of environmental benefits and harms. It also requires participation in environmental decisions of those affected by them, and equal recognition of their cultural identities, dimensions most clearly articulated in relation to indigenous struggles, where past devaluation of place-based cultural identities is seen as a source of injustice. An alternative concept of environmental justice is proposed that draws on accounts of how attachment (and place attachment specifically) is constitutive for both self-efficacy and collective agency in the face of an intrinsically uncertain future. Drawing on the work of Peter Marris and using a case study of UK gas pipeline infrastructure, it is shown how disruption to attachments also disrupts lived strategies for dealing with an uncertain future. The source of injustice involved in such disruption should be viewed as the ‘colonisation of attachment’.

Environmental Values, Jun 1, 2016

Understanding how and why practices may be transformed is vital for any transition towards socio-... more Understanding how and why practices may be transformed is vital for any transition towards socio-environmental sustainability. However, theorising and explaining the role of individual agency in practice change continues to present challenges. In this paper we propose that theories of practice can be usefully combined with a psychosocial framework to explain how agency is biographically patterned and how this ‘patterning’ is a product of attachment relationships and strategies for dealing with uncertainty. Biographical interview data from the project Energy Biographies is used to illustrate the ways in which this theoretical approach can enhance understanding of how potential for practice change may be opened up or obstructed.

The role of future imaginaries in influencing technological evolution through the production of e... more The role of future imaginaries in influencing technological evolution through the production of expectations is well-attested (e.g. Borup et al., 2006) However, the emphasis has often fallen mainly on the role played by imaginaries within the development phase of new technologies. Yet when technologies are taken up within society, they take their place alongside meanings and competences as elements of practices, where practices are understood as purposive social activities (Shove et al., 2012). Changes in one of these elements may effect changes in others, creating social transformations in turn. Future imaginaries may be understood as ingredients of the meaning of practices, particularly in cases where practices aim themselves at achieving social transformation. Part of the meaning of practices, however, is how they matter to individuals and to groups (Sayer, 2011): as well as being purposive activities, practices are also constituents of identity and conditions of agency, and are interwoven with affective, future-oriented states such as hope or anxiety. In addition to being ways of ‘getting things done’, they are also affectively and symbolically significant ways of giving shape to an uncertain future – a function in which future imaginaries play a key part.

Good examples of experimental practices which manifest all these aspects are those involved in explorations of more sustainable ways of living, in which future imaginaries of ‘self-sufficiency’ constitute important symbolic and affective resources – not least insofar as they help constitute the reflexivity of these practices towards ‘mainstream’ ways of living, and towards the meanings, competences and infrastructures that compose them. This paper examines how imaginaries and technology use co-evolve as a result of the performance of experimental, sustainable practices, with the aid of an analysis of narrative interviews undertaken with participants from the Tir-y-Gafel/Lammas low-impact community in West Wales, one of the four communities studied by the Energy Biographies (http://energybiographies.org) project at Cardiff University. Imaginaries of self-sufficiency are shown to be a key element in how participants make sense of an uncertain future. These imaginaries enable reflexivity both towards technology choice and use across a range of practices relating to every aspect of household and communal life, as well as guiding improvisation in response to unforeseen situations. At the same time, technologies – ranging from hydroelectric generators and solar panels to tablet computers, fridges and power tools – introduce reflexivity towards the idea of self-sufficiency itself, leading participants to question core elements of this future imaginary, and in particular, the degree to which it can provide normative guidance in technology choice and use. While imaginaries shape the social use of technologies by stimulating bricolage and improvisation, the dependencies embodied by technologies are shown to gradually emerge, in practice, as factors that can place in question the consistency of imaginaries and induce normative change. It is thus demonstrated that technologies are not just substitutable means towards predefined ends, but may also reshape what are taken to be viable and desirable social purposes.

References
Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K., and Van Lente, H. (2006). “The Sociology of Expectations in Science and Technology.” Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 18: 285–298
Sayer, Andrew. (2011). Why things matter to people : social science, values and ethical life. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shove, E., Pantzar, M., & Watson, M. (2012). The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and how it Changes. London: SAGE Publications.

The normative basis of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), it has recently been argued, sh... more The normative basis of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), it has recently been argued, should be the need to ‘care for the future’ in the face of inescapable ignorance and uncertainties about the ‘downstream’ consequences and wider societal implications of using new technological artefacts. The use of ‘care’ here evokes Hans Jonas’ warning that neither the ‘existence’ nor the ‘essence’ of humanity should be at stake in the ‘hazards of action’ (Jonas, 1984). But what values and practices of ‘caring’ can be adequate to the kinds of uncertainty, ignorance and ambiguity that are implicated within technological innovation? There are moral concepts of care that relate to how skills and knowledge should be used by their possessors, and which may be translated into legal notions of a duty of care (Koepsell, 2010). There are broader, ethical concepts of care which deal with the preservation and tending of individuals and forms of life (Kittay, 2013; Ruddick, 1989). There are also political concepts of care that deal with the mutual dependency of human beings and the claims on justice that may be derived from it (Engster, 2007; Tronto, 1993). Here, I outline why concepts of a ‘duty of care’ are insufficient to understand the sense in which ‘care for the future’ can be meaningfully understood as a dimension of innovation. I sketch a possible agenda for developing a more adequately fleshed-out concept of care relevant to RRI, one which draws on the work of Annemarie Mol (2008) and on the idea of constitutive value (Groves, 2011; O'Neill, 1993). Mol’s work, I argue, alerts us to the centrality of how different kinds of temporality can shape innovations either in practice or in technological infrastructure in more or less ‘care-full’ ways. By examining the function of constitutive value within ethical and political theories of care, it is possible to understand more adequately the ways in which technologies are more than just instruments of pre-given human intentions. By placing these two theoretical contributions of ethical and political care approaches in the foreground of RRI, I suggest, it may be possible to develop an ethics of RRI that recognises a range of implications of what it might to ‘re-embed’ technoscience within society, and thus may be adequate to RRI’s normative ambitions.

References
Engster, Daniel. (2007). The heart of justice: care ethics and political theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Groves, Christopher. (2011). The Political Imaginary of Care: Generic versus Singular Futures. Journal of International Political Theory, 7(2), 165-189. doi: 10.3366/jipt.2011.0013
Jonas, Hans. (1984). The imperative of responsibility : in search of an ethics for the technological age. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press.
Kittay, E.F. (2013). Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency. London: Taylor & Francis.
Koepsell, David. (2010). On Genies and Bottles: Scientists’ Moral Responsibility and Dangerous Technology R&D. Science and Engineering Ethics, 16(1), 119-133. doi: 10.1007/s11948-009-9158-x
Mol, Annemarie. (2008). The logic of care : health and the problem of patient choice. London ; New York: Routledge.
O'Neill, John. (1993). Ecology, policy and politics. London: Routledge.
Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. New York: Beacon Press.
Tronto, Joan C. (1993). Moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Routledge.

The work of the Energy Biographies research team (www.energybiographies.org) is creating spaces f... more The work of the Energy Biographies research team (www.energybiographies.org) is creating spaces for people to reflect on how they use energy in everyday life, and to generate interesting narratives about how it might be possible for them to live more sustainably in the future. To do this, we are utilising an innovative set of case study, qualitative longitudinal, and multimodal research methods and techniques carefully designed to prompt awareness among our study participants of the embedded, contingent nature of energy intensification in everyday life, and to promote their understanding of how it might be possible to reconfigure non-negotiable aspects of everyday life in ways that do not simply pose disruptions to people’s valued life and identity concerns. We are also designing a public exhibition of our work, and our exhibit will offer visitors a variety of different sensorial encounters with energy. The aim of the exhibition is to promote more creative engagement with our developing lines of analytic work, and the social scientific precepts informing it. We anticipate that this will generate further opportunities for visitors to envisage the possibilities that are being opened up by our research activities and interactive, multimodal tasks for transforming the practical capabilities people have for using energy in their everyday lives and their involvement in inventing different futures. The specific focus of our presentation will be on our methodological work, in particular, how we have used different approaches to help people think about the future, and on exploring data we have on how people imagined the future at different points in time across the project. We will consider the kinds of futures people imagine during their initial interviews, along with the forms of emotional attachment that accompany everyday/habitual, biographical/transitional or socially transformative changes, and ask “how do these attachments reflect and shape people's sense of agency ?“ Through our analysis, we will bring into view how there are some differences between respondents in our four community case sites (an ecovillage, large hospital, affluent commuter village, and socio-economically deprived inner city community); also how our respondents’ ways of making sense of the future are confirmed or changed by participating in the mobile phone/text prompted picture task and viewing two videos of life in the future home. Reflecting on the wider significance of our analytic work, we will consider any implications it has for contemporary understandings of the future as a commonplace in everyday life, including how this perspective has developed modes of analysis of the invention of different futures.

Worries voiced by industry and governments that nanotechnology, particularly as applied to e.g. f... more Worries voiced by industry and governments that nanotechnology, particularly as applied to e.g. food enhancement, might be the “next GM” have focused on the roots of social attitudes to novel technologies. Fears that the industry might face a “Frankenfood” moment in the future rest largely on conventional wisdom – that is, assumptions that “the public” is fearful of the unknown, or more precisely, that individuals increasingly respond to new technologies in a highly risk-averse manner. Although the “deficit model” of science communication (in which public attitudes are conceived of as being a direct result of a lack of reliable information about the risks and potential benefits of new technologies) has been under attack for many years, these assumptions about the public arguably demonstrate that it remains influential, and has resulted in a defensive stance on the part of business and governance actors towards a public whose irrationality is perceived as itself posing a risk to innovation.
However, social science research demonstrates that risk and hazard are not, in and of themselves, the main sources of negative public reaction to new technologies, and particularly in relation to GM. Other sources of public disquiet and distrust about GM have been shown to be much more important, which relate not to the unknown but to the known, to past experience with other technologies. People’s views about new technologies tend to be inflected by their distrust in business organisations, the expectation that technologists and regulators alike have trouble acknowledging areas of persistent uncertainty, and the view that regulation tends to be unable to cope with unpleasant surprises. This paper shows how deliberative public engagement exercises around nanotechnologies in the UK and elsewhere have suggested that the same factors may be in play with regard to public views of nanotechnologies, and may become more significant in the future. It also discusses a recent nanofutures study in the UK with an expert panel confirms that a comparison between GM and nano should be made, but how it is framed should be carefully considered, and the lessons which should be drawn from it may be different to those which governments and companies have drawn from the “conventional wisdom”. Indeed, it provides evidence that supports the view that government and industry associations should vigorously pursue a range of public engagement activities, particularly around potentially controversial applications of the technology, such as certain food uses.

Science and Technology Studies and, in particular, the sociology of expectations has shown in det... more Science and Technology Studies and, in particular, the sociology of expectations has shown in detail how the evolution of emerging technologies is shaped by promises, and the future imaginaries that underlie them. But beyond the specific content of the projected future, there is the act of projecting itself, what we might call our relationship to the future horizon. As Niklas Luhmann notes, “[…] the essential characteristic of a horizon is that we can never touch it, never get at it, never surpass it, but that in spite of that, it contributes to the definition of the situation”. Aside from investigations of particular expectations or imagined futures, we may find that what renders consistent a wide range of imagined futures, technological and otherwise, is how they perform and relate to the future as the horizon of the present – how they, for example, empty and commodify it, open it up or close it off, or render it tangible in the present as a latent stake in the hazards of action. Attention to the quality of future-orientation is therefore important because this quality defines how we shall live with uncertainty, whether we amplify or reduce it, and how we inscribe our relationships with future inhabitants of the planet (human and non-human) into our present. Drawing on examples of the future horizons of nanotechnologies, I suggest that sensitization to the implicit future horizons of technological imaginaries can point up central ethical and political contradictions within them, and sketch how a future horizon informed by care ethics can help us think productively about the meaning of responsible innovation, both in nanotechnology and more widely.

WIRES Climate Change, 2019

The connection between climate scepticism and climate denial and what has become known as post-tr... more The connection between climate scepticism and climate denial and what has become known as post-truth culture has become the subject of much interest in recent years, leading to intense debates among scientists and activists about how to respond to this changed cultural context and the ways in which it is held to obstruct wider acceptance of climate science. Drawing on research in the sociology of scientific knowledge, science and technology studies, social psychology and philosophical reflections on evidential reasoning, it is argued that these debates are focused on the wrong topic. The idea of post-truth implies that a once-straightforward linear relationship between scientific evidence and decisions on what to do has been eroded. But such an idealised relationship never existed. The proper role of scientific evidence in informing belief and action in response to the prospect of anthropogenic climate change needs reconsideration. A key part of this is to make uncertainties related to processes within the climate system and their potential outcomes into the main focus of public discussion around climate change. Instead of keeping the focus of debate on how to 'get the science right', such a reframing makes precautionary questions about the prospect of unacceptable losses into the main focus, bringing a variety of ethical and political values into the debate, and perhaps creating better conditions for a minimal consensus about what to do.

Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has inform... more Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has informed recent work in science and technology studies on the sociology of expectations. But anticipation, as a capacity or characteristic, is not solely manifested in the form of representations, even where such representations of the 'not yet' are performative in nature. It is also a material capacity with unconscious as well as conscious and explicit forms, woven into technological and biophysical systems. The politics of anticipation is shaped by how these symbolic and material capacities, and the forms of agency they make possible, are distributed. A conceptual framework for analysing anticipation as a symbolic and material capability is introduced, and fleshed out using two case studies (energy infrastructure planning and climate engineering). In this way, the concepts of future horizons and a 'futural unconscious' are used to show how and why studying the material and symbolic, implicit and explicit aspects of anticipation can shed light on the nature of environmental politics. In particular, the relationships between dynamics of emptying the future and lived futures are shown to be materially important for conflicts over environmental justice.