Projects per year
Abstract
Citizen participation is often valorised in the governance of areas of high scientific uncertainty at national, international and supranational levels. This chapter considers citizen or public participation in the specific area of the EU’s agenda on sustainable development as it increasingly frames technoscientific innovation and development. Specifically, the chapter focuses on just one underexplored aspect of the conditions of possibility for participation: imaginaries. These include how the EU imagines its engagement, responsibilities and identity in relation to the specific area, including the knowledges that are constructed and used in decision-making, and by implication the role of citizen or public participation.
The discussion draws on an analysis of the social and technoscientific imaginaries found in legal, regulatory and policy discourses. These construct the frame of sustainable development and build a link between it and technoscientific innovation and development. By attention to imaginaries as one aspect of the frame, the chapter highlights the centrality of, and main interactions between, sustainable development in the inscription and potential disruption of the normative and programmatic background for the operationalisation of technoscientific innovation. These insights are used to highlight how imaginaries constitute a crucial aspect of the conditions of possibility for participation: determining who has to participate in decision-making through configurations of ‘citizen’ or ‘public’, how, why, and which outcomes are to be achieved by that participation.
The discussion draws on an analysis of the social and technoscientific imaginaries found in legal, regulatory and policy discourses. These construct the frame of sustainable development and build a link between it and technoscientific innovation and development. By attention to imaginaries as one aspect of the frame, the chapter highlights the centrality of, and main interactions between, sustainable development in the inscription and potential disruption of the normative and programmatic background for the operationalisation of technoscientific innovation. These insights are used to highlight how imaginaries constitute a crucial aspect of the conditions of possibility for participation: determining who has to participate in decision-making through configurations of ‘citizen’ or ‘public’, how, why, and which outcomes are to be achieved by that participation.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Knowledge, Technology and Law: Interrogating the Nexus |
Editors | Emilie Cloatre, Martyn Pickersgill |
Place of Publication | London |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
ISBN (Print) | 978-0-415-62862-4 |
Publication status | Published - 15 Sept 2014 |
Publication series
Name | Law, Science and Society |
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Publisher | Routledge |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Contingent Participation: Imaginaries of Sustainable Technoscientific Innovation in the EU'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Active
Activities
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Mapping the New Molecular Landscape: Social and Ethical Aspects of Epigenetics
Flear, M. (Participant)
24 Sept 2012Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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Arts & Humanities Research Council (External organisation)
Flear, M. (Member)
01 Sept 2012 → 01 Sept 2015Activity: Membership types › Membership of external research organisation
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19th International Conference of Europeanists
Flear, M. (Speaker)
18 Mar 2012Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
Prizes
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Citation of research in Harvard University course, ‘Science, Power and Politics (I): IGA-313, History of Science 285a (Fall 2009)’
Flear, M. (Recipient), 01 Sept 2009
Prize: Other distinction
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Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge for British Academy funded project ‘EU Governance in AIDS, Cancer and Obesity: Governmentality, Citizenship and Polity’
Flear, M. (Recipient), 01 Jul 2008
Prize: National/international honour
Research output
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Towards Further Dialogue Between Law and Science and Technology Studies
Flear, M., 25 Nov 2021Research output: Other contribution
Open Access -
Understanding Expectations as Techniques of Legitimation
Flear, M., 29 Nov 2021Research output: Other contribution
Open Access -
Sustainable Technoscientific Development and the Innovator Citizen
Pfister, T. & Flear, M. L., Jun 2014, In: Open Citizenship. 5, 1, p. 28-39Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review