Civic Epistemologies

Abstract

The concept of civic epistemologies is introduced by addressing a gap in studies of science and democracy that indeed deal with the increasing intimate collaboration between sciences and the state, but leave out the publics on whose behalf states engage with science. Thus, Jasanoff argues that public reactions (or at least their anticipation) have a crucial role in shaping the interactions between states and sciences. “[…] comparative analysis suggests that it is the three-cornered relationship among science, state and society that gives the politics of biotechnology its cultural specificity. These obser-vations point, in turn, to a need for new theoretical resources to bring the missing public back into studies of science and democracy. I argue in this chapter that how publics assess claims by, on behalf of, or grounded in science forms an integral element of political culture in con-temporary knowledge societies.” (Jasanoff 2005, p. 248 f.) Hence, the basic question arising from the concept of civic epistemologies is, what counts as legitimate public argument? The concept deals with shared understandings about what cred-ible claims should look like and how they ought to be articulated, represented, and defended. “I use the term civic epistemology to refer to these culturally specific, historically and politi-cally grounded, public knowledge-ways.” (Jasanoff 2005, p. 249) Jasanoff distinguishes her concept from the classical public understanding of science that takes science as universal and only problematises the ‘understanding’ of science, assuming that cross-cultural variations are due to public misunderstanding. In contrast, the notion of civic epistemologies avoids a priori assumptions about what publics should know or under-stand. Instead, the concept focuses on collective knowledge ways of communities and how they differ between countries. In doing so, Jasanoff follows the critical public understanding of science that builds on a more complex and competent human subject that struggles with integrating different knowledge claims and experiences in the face of uncertainty and differ-ent pressures. However, civic epistemologies embrace more collective and at least partly institutionalised practices of testing and deploying knowledge claims, rather than individual ways of under-standing. Asking how ‘public understandings’ or civic epistemologies are culturally consti-tuted as a basis for collective choices, cultural differences in decisions concerning the same technologies can be explained. Based on divergent collective understandings of what is at stake, consequently different assessments of the risks, costs and benefits of a technology are made. Vice versa, demonstrations and arguments that fail to meet these civic episte-mologies may be dismissed as illegitimate or irrational. Eventually, Jasanoff asks where to look to reveal civic epistemologies and states two possi-bilities. The first one is to observe moments when it cannot be achieved to meet them, as for example when she analyses the case of the British minister of agriculture feeding his daugh-ter a beef-burger in front of TV cameras in the middle of the BSE crisis. That this perform-ance failed in persuading the public reveals that it was not considered as credible in this cul-tural frame any more. The second possibility to analyse civic epistemologies is by cross-national comparison of political responses to a certain technology. Jasanoff exemplifies that in comparing six dimen-sions of civic epistemologies that focus on ways in which states encounter knowledge (par-ticipatory styles of public knowledge-making), persuade the public (methods of ensuring ac-countability and practices of public demonstration), legitimise knowledge claims (registers of objectivity and bases of expertise) and refer to expert bodies (visibility of expert bodies).