Scientific research, technological innovation and the agenda of social justice, democratic participation and sustainability

Abstract

Modern science, whose methodologies give special privilege to using decontextualizing strategies and downplay the role of context-sensitive strategies, have been extraordinarily successful in producing knowledge whose applications have transformed the shape of the lifeworld. Nevertheless, I argue that how the mainstream of the modern scientific tradition interprets the nature and objectives of science is incoherent; and that today there are two competing interpretations of scientific activities that are coherent and that maintain continuity with the success of the tradition: "commercially-oriented technoscience" (CT) and "multi-strategy research" (MS). The greater part of this article is devoted to discussing what is involved in MS, by pointing to its positive research program in three areas ("social technology", agroecology and food sovereignty), and its critical stance towards the innovations of CT, especially insofar as it makes use of the Precautionary Principle. In this way important dimensions of the agenda of science and technology for social justice, democratic participation and sustainability become clear.