Remaking Participation

The focus of this book is public participation in the governance of science and technology, particularly pertaining to environment and sustainability issues. The past three decades have seen a dramatic rise in diverse forms of participation throughout western democracies, but this book represents the first major attempt to consolidate the research field of critical public engagement studies and practice, working at the interface between science and technology studies (STS), geography, environmental science, and political and democratic theory.

Changing relations between science and democracy - and controversies over issues such as climate change, energy transitions, genetically modified organisms and smart technologies - have led to a rapid rise in new forms of public participation and citizen engagement. While most existing approaches adopt fixed meanings of 'participation' and are consumed by questions of method or critiquing the possible limits of democratic engagement, this book offers new insights that rethink public engagements with science, innovation and environmental issues as diverse, emergent and in the making. Bringing together leading scholars on science and democracy, working between science and technology studies, political theory, geography, sociology and anthropology, the volume develops relational and co-productionist approaches to studying and intervening in spaces of participation. New empirical insights into the making, construction, circulation and effects of participation across cultures are illustrated through examples ranging from climate change and energy to nanotechnology and mundane technologies, from institutionalised deliberative processes to citizen-led innovation and activism, and from the global north to global south. This new way of seeing participation in science and democracy opens up alternative paths for reconfiguring and remaking participation in more experimental, reflexive, anticipatory and responsible ways.

This ground-breaking book is essential reading for scholars and students of participation across the critical social sciences and beyond, as well as those seeking to build more transformative participatory practices.

"The insightful chapters collected in this book show how concerns raised bytechnosciences provide a tremendous opportunity for remaking democracy. The editors and authors invite us to consider the so-called participatory turn neither as a masquerade nor as a mere social technology but as a global multisite construction place where new forms of collective life and government are imagined and experimented. A brilliant book that should be read by all those interested in the future of our planet." Michel Callon, Professor of Sociology, École des mines and Centre de sociologie de l'innovation, Paris, France "Do not mistake the modesty advocated by this book for half-heartedness. Remaking Participation argues that we should expand our perspectives on participation, and need to get better at appreciating the incredible variety of locations, devices and genres with which participation is done in today's technological societies. This situation makes it necessary to 'un-fix' our understanding of participation. In practice, participation often does not conform to the democratic ideal of participation that we know so well it is not necessarily good, necessary, authentic. But neither would it do to declare that participation has turned into its opposite (that it has become co-opted, trivial, ineffective). Bringing together leading intellectual voices on science, technology and democracy, Remaking Participation shows that participation lies at the very heart of current technological, environmental and political transformations, and outlines a much needed research agenda that engages with the intensely ambivalent situations that result from this."Noortje Marres, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick, UK "Modern societies remain hampered by myths about the relationship between science and democracy. The myths produce unwelcome practices, such as attempts to scientize political decisions or to discredit science by politicising it. This landmark volumeexplodes the myths and shows how science and democracy can achieve a new relationshipunderpinned by the core value of public participation. It shows how and why science needs to rethink its relationship with society, andhow societies can make science and democracy far more responsive to their needs and desires. The book takes readers to the cutting-edge of debates about the proper relationships between science and democracy. More than this, it also explores new territory, showing how science and democracy can be more richly infused with the practices of both. The editors and authors have together done a brilliant job of showing us what needs to change, and how. It will be a key reference for many years to come. "Noel Castree, Professor of Geography, University of Wollongong, Australia and University of Manchester, UK "Whether sparked by gene editing or geoengineering, fracking or food crops, arguments about the possibilities and pitfalls of advances in science and technology ripple through our societies with increasing frequency. How, and on what terms, experts, policymakers and wider publics engage in these debates is a topic of constant and fierce negotiation. In Remaking Participation, Jason Chilvers and Matthew Kearnes have brought together an exciting and original series of contributions from some of the leading thinkers in this field. The end result is a collection of rare quality, insight and relevance to real-world questions. It should be read by scholars, students, practitioners, policymakers, and all those who care about the future of science, technology and society."James Wilsdon, Professor of Science & Democracy, University of Sussex, UK & Chair, Campaign for Social Science "'Participation' is the word that covers all sins, a term so elastic that it can be used to both challenge and legitimize any given decision-making process. Remaking Participation shows how to redeem this slippery concept and sharpen its critical edge. By examining in detail how citizens engage with controversial scientific and environmental issues, this book invites us to see the objects and the subjects of participation, the problems that trigger political action and the collectives that gather around them, as emergent, mutually constitutive realities. Far from being a recipe for relativism and detachment, the authors' embrace of the contingency that besets participatory democracy in the making reinvigorates the ideal of civic engagement and recasts the role of social scientists as participants in open-ended political experiments."Javier Lezaun, Deputy Director, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford, UK "This is the book that many have long been waiting for. It tackles head-on, some of the most important current issues at the meeting of social science and wider politics: What does participation mean? Where is it going? Transcending the usual dichotomised tropes, these essays take diverse and highly nuanced critically reflectively views with many very practical implications. The conclusions are of enormous importance to all those academics and practitioners working in policy arenas touched by the language and practice of participation"Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Co-Director of the STEPS Centre, University of Sussex, UK "Exercises of participatory technology assessment are a fascinating window onto relations of science, citizens, and state. Bringing together a rich diversity of cases and arguments, the book builds on the idea that public assessment oftechnology is a form of democratic experiment by analyzing the variety of ways in which this is so. In the process, we gain a useful theoretical framework for understanding the modern enterprise of 'public engageme…