Abstract
In this study, the authors examine the performative functions of scientists' discursive constructions of the science-society relationship. They use discursive psychology to analyze interviews with Dutch plant scientists and show that interviewees contrast the freedom of people in the private sphere with scientists' responsibilities in the professional sphere to regulate "lay" access to science. To accomplish this, interviewees make claims about the scientific value of lay views only after they have displayed their tolerance of these views. Additionally, many interviewees refer to their own lay status in everyday life. Finally, the relationship between findings and recent science communication approaches is discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 727-751 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Science Communication |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2012 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The research presented in this article indicates that the constructions of absent laypeople fulfill an important role in plant scientists’ accounts (see also Hacking, 2007 ; Wynne, 2005 ). Nevertheless, the role that the interviewed scientists allocate to laypeople in their accounts is rather limited and passive. Interviewed scientists appear to want to contribute to society by giving laypeople the freedom to reject or to use the technologies and knowledge they come up with (cf. Benschop, Horstman, & Vos, 2003 ). Our scientists seem to propagate a science for society but not a science in society. Their discursive practice still resembles a top-down model of science communication, although the role that scientists ascribe to themselves has changed. They present themselves no longer primarily as superior knowledge producers for society but more as actors who can best regulate the use of different kinds of knowledge if necessary or desirable. Scientists’ constructions of the science-society relationship appear to be something in between a deficit model on the one hand and a dialogue or participation model on the other (cf. Burchell et al., 2009 ; Rowe & Frewer, 2005 ). We propose to tentatively name this phenomenon the “superior capacity model.” We have chosen to use the term model because the discursive constructions participants in our study employ indicate that they partly orient toward and draw on deficit and participation models to account for if, how, and when they communicate with laypeople. Our model is similar to classical deficit approaches in that laypeople are conceptualized as lacking relevant knowledge and experience. It is dissimilar from deficit approaches in that informing the public is considered less important; instead, participants claim that laypeople lack the competence and experience to manage different kinds of knowledge needed to solve today’s complex, societal problems. This they do by presenting scientists as better equipped to judge different kinds of knowledge than laypeople are. Our model is akin to participation and dialogue models in that it shares their underlying assumption that different stakeholders may have different types of relevant knowledge ( Leach et al. 2005 ). However, contrary to participation and dialogue models, our model does not see participation as a precondition for the resolution of societal problems (cf. Burningham, Barnett, Carr, Clift, & Wehrmeyer, 2007 ). The participation of particular groups may offer no added value, partly because of the existence of knowledge hybrids , as our participants present themselves, who simultaneously possess and competently combine lay and expert knowledge (see also Thomas et al., 2004 , for the uses of knowledge hybrids). Another reason why lay participation may not offer added value is that participants in our study allocate the relevance of their own and others’ lay views to the private sphere (see also Swierstra & te Molder, 2012 ); in everyday life, it is okay for scientists to make decisions as a layperson. However, interviewed scientists claim that in a scientific context, different rules for decision making apply. This superior capacity model is a construction that seems to serve interviewed scientists rather well; they retain their scientific autonomy without contradicting the assumption of funding agencies and others that laypeople have salient knowledge. However, our study leaves many questions unanswered. First of all, further research is needed to determine whether scientists in other epistemic communities employ the discursive construction/model we found and whether the function of the construction is the same in different settings. Secondly, it remains to be seen whether plant scientists’ science-society constructions will hold when scientists interact with different stakeholder groups and (representatives of) laypeople in the flesh. Appendix Transcription Notations [ text ] Overlapping speech (x.x) Pause of x.x seconds (.) Micropause, less than 0.2 seconds (text) Speech unclear ↑word,↓word Onset of noticeable pitch rise or fall wo:rd Colons show that the speaker has stretched the preceding sound word Emphasized WORD Speaker is talking louder ° text ° Speaker is talking softer ((text)) Transcriber’s remarks = No pause between words or turns >text< Fast speaking Note: Based on Jeffersonian transcription ( Jefferson, 2004 ). Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to thank the CSG Centre for Society and the Life Sciences and NGI for providing the grant that made the research on which this article is based possible. 1. Where we write about laypeople, one may also read nonscientists. We use the term laypeople to be in keeping with the terminology used in the existing expert-lay literature. 2. We sometimes talk about the public in this article. We primarily use this term to be in keeping with the literature on scientists’ understanding of the public and public engagement. However, whenever one reads public, one may also read nonscientists. Nonscientists we deem a more neutral term because the term public suggests that scientists can totally control with whom they interact. However, in actual practice, nonscientific participants are not a passive partner in science communication activities. Nonscientists are likely to decide for themselves whether and, if so, when they participate in public engagement activities. 3. We did not find earlier studies in the literature that discursively analyze displays of tolerance. 4. Interviewees generally do not employ the terms laypeople or lay views. They speak of they, people , or consumers when they talk about the societal relevance of their work or when they discuss well-known lay arguments. In the empirical part of the article, we use the term laypeople as an umbrella category for interviewees’ different references to nonscientists. Likewise, we employ lay views to refer to nonscientific views. 5. All fragments are analyzed in Dutch and subsequently translated from Dutch to English by the first author. Translations from Dutch are as literal as possible for analytical purposes. 6. The Dutch expression Iedereen mag alles vinden is commonly translated in English as Everyone may think whatever they like . The literal translation is: Everyone may think everything .
Keywords
- discursive psychology
- displays of tolerance
- linguistic anthropology
- plant genomics
- scientists' understanding of laypeople
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