ARTICLE ABSTRACT: How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to "laboratory experiments," highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the "participation laboratory" by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in ways that respect and mobilize their ecologies of participation. Our innovative reflexive methodology introduced participatory methods to public engagement with upstream techno-science, with the public contributing to both the content and format of the project. Reflecting on the project, we draw attention to the largely overlooked issue of temporalities of participation, and the co-production of futures and publics in participation methodologies. We argue that many public participation methodologies are underpinned by the open futures model, which imagines the future as a space of unrestrained creativity. We contrast that model with the lived futures model typical of localized publics, which respects latency of materials and processes but imposes limits on creativity. We argue that to continue being societally relevant and scientifically important, public participation methods should reconcile the open future of research with the lived futures of localized publics.
Anna Krzywoszynska, Watson Matt, Alastair Buckley, Prue Chiles, Nicky Gregson, Helen Holmes and Jose Mawyin, "2018. Krzywoszynska et. al. "Opening Up the Participation Laboratory: The Cocreation of Publics and Futures in Upstream Participation"", contributed by James Adams, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 7 June 2018, accessed 26 August 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/2018-krzywoszynska-et-al-opening-participation-laboratory-cocreation-publics-and-futures
Critical Commentary
In this 2018 article, Krzywoszynska et. al discuss an innovatively reflexive style of particapatory methods that is sensitive to the temporality of participation so as to enable the a vision of energy futures as a co-produced space of unrestrained creativity.