Abstract
In response to calls for a research and innovation system that is more open to public scrutiny, we have seen a growth of formal and informal public engagement activities in the past decades. Nevertheless, critiques of several persistent routines in public engagement continue to resurface, in particular the focus on expert knowledge, cognitive exchange, risk discourse, and understandings of public opinion as being static. In an attempt to break out of these routines, we experimented with an innovative engagement format that employs situated speculative prototyping to support citizens in contextualizing and discussing developments regarding—in this case—nanotechnology. This format invites participants to imagine and critically reflect on technological futures through collaborative prototyping and story-writing. In this paper, we outline five reconstructed contextualization patterns in which participants engaged during the format’s exercises and use these to assess the value of the format in the current engagement landscape. We show that situated speculative prototyping has potential in the realm of informal public engagement initiatives, taking an explorative approach, but also warn of ‘the designer fallacy’ as a prominent pitfall of prototyping that could reproduce techno-scientific framings and obstruct critical reflection on technological directions and implications if not treated with caution.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-18 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | NanoEthics |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 13 Mar 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research took place in the context of the NANO2ALL project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no 685931. This document reflects only the author’s view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
This research took place in the context of the NANO2ALL project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no 685931. This document reflects only the author’s view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
Keywords
- Nanotechnology
- New and emerging technologies
- Prototyping
- Public engagement (method)
- Responsible research and innovation
- Speculative approaches
