Science and Citizens: Globalization and the Challenge of Engagement (review)

Reviewed by: Science and Citizens, Globalization and the Challenge of Engagement Thora Margareta Bertilsson Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones and Brian Wynne (eds.), Science and Citizens, Globalization and the Challenge of Engagement, London/New York: Zed Books, 2005, 295 pp. The book under review is volume 5 in a larger series entitled Claiming citizenship: rights, participation and accountability. The underlying theme of this series is to increase the attention on issues of rights and citizenship seen in different settings. The globalisation process entails, amongst other things, an expansion of science claims at the same time as 'publics' are formed around the world questioning and opposing science as a new discursive form of colonialism. The special contribution of this volume is to bring together two hitherto separate strands of inquiry: STS studies and Developmental Studies (DS). In the last decade, STS studies have paid increasing attention to the relation between science and its publics. Questioning the derived 'deficit model' and its fixed asymmetry between experts (knower) and lay people (ignorant), science studies have brought forth new forms of more engaged relations. Alan Irwin coined the term 'Citizen Science' in his attempts to have science communication flowing both ways: lay people in dialogues with experts, eventually resulting in a reversal of fixed roles. Established science has lost much of its traditional authority, not the least in Great Britain due to various crises such as the mad [End Page 383] cow disease. Even a section of the House of Lords urged the science establishment to take seriously the concerns of lay people, and improve on science communication in order to resolve the threatening legitimacy deficit. The European Commission has also paid attention to the link between science and society or experts versus lay people. The reason is that EU — in contrast to old nation-states enmeshed in thick national cultures — is a very thin cultural constellation and, hence, heavily dependent on more formal linguistic devices in science and in law. If these devices fail in generating trust and authority, the whole EU-project is in danger. The EU 'damage control' is not covered in this volume, but would fit very well into the general picture. DS have a long tradition of observing the meeting between Western symbol systems (such as science) and Non-Western local knowledge-systems. André Gunder Frank's epochal attack on modernization theory applied to developing countries has certainly had effects, not to mention Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961). But while Marxist-oriented approaches have fallen out of fashion, there is perhaps a possibility for critical science studies to supply a much-needed new paradigm. Expanding science communication to listen to the locals themselves are, as pleaded in this book, means of advanced democratic discourse. I came across a number of new linguistic devices here, such as 'cognitive representation', 'cognitive rights' and 'cognitive justice': different knowledge systems have a right to be represented in global discourse (chap. 6). Such pleas form the spirit of the book as a whole: to merge theoretical and practical reason in the attempt to expand the democratic dialogue into matters of science. In a short review, there is no way that I can do full justice in reviewing all the 19 separate chapters. These are divided into 4 headings: science and citizenship; beyond risk; defining the terrain; citizens engaging with science; participation and the politics of engagement. In selecting just a few, I hope to give the flavour of the book. Referring to the two separate strands of sociological inquiry, STS and DS, I have already covered the theme of section 1: Science and citizenship. The new perspective such a fusion offers particularly enthralled me in grasping yet another and central aspect of globalisation. In section 2, Jerry Ravetz makes a bold and interesting plea to translate risk studies into studies on safety. The latter perspective would carry out 'post normal science' in actual practice, i.e. invoking complexity and extended peer engagements. Brian Wynne takes notice of the fact that 'risk society' imposes a North-West model on the world, and that we need to be much more aware of a variable 'risk-public discourse' in a world context. In section...