Cultural Aspects of Innovation, including ”grass-roots” innovations

1. Andrew Jamison Aalborg University Cultural Aspects of Innovation, including ”grass-roots” innovations NACI Workshop on Broad-based Innovations, Pretoria, South Africa, Feb 27, 2009 Based on:

2. By way of introduction... A good technology, firmly related to human needs, cannot be one that has a maximum productivity as its supreme goal: it must rather, as in an organic system, seek to provide the right quantity of the right quality at the right time and the right place for the right purpose. Lewis Mumford, 1961

3. The Cultures of Innovation

4. Changing Modes of KnowledgeProduction Industrial Military Commercial “Little Science” “Big Science” “Technoscience” Mode 1 Mode 1½ Mode 2 Before WWII 1940s-1970s 1980s- Form of Knowledgedisciplinary multidisciplinary transdisciplinary Organiza-individuals and R&D departments ad hoc projects and tional form research groups and institutes networks Dominant values academic bureaucratic entrepreneurial

5. From Little Science to Big Science • change in size and scale • mission orientation, external control • university-government collaboration • bureaucratic norm, or value system • new role for the state: ”science policy” • appropriate technology/technology assessment

6. Critiques of Big Science in the 1960s • moral, or spiritual (e.g. Martin Luther King) • against injustice,”poverty of the spirit” • for a new morality • scientific, or ecological(e.g. Rachel Carson) • against reductionism, ”the abuse of the planet” • for an environmental science • humanist, or cultural (e.g. Lewis Mumford) • against hubris, ”the myth of the machine” • for an appropriate technology

7. An Appropriate Technology Movement in the 1970s The New Alchemy Institute Ark Tvindmøllen 1977-1978 Nordic Folkcenter for Renewable Energy

8. From Big Science to Technoscience • change in range and scope • market orientation, corporate control • university-industry collaboration • entrepreneurial norm, or value system • the state as strategist: innovation policy • from assessment to promotion: ”foresight”

9. The Age of Technoscience • A blurring of discursive boundaries • between science (episteme) and technology (techne) • A trespassing of institutional borders • between public and private, economic and academic • A mixing of skills and competencies • across disciplines and societal domains

10. Contending Policy Strategies • The dominant , or hegemonic strategy (mode 2): commercialization, entrepreneurship, transdisciplinarity • The residual, or traditionalist strategy (mode 1): academicization, expertise, (multi)disciplinarity • An emerging, or sustainable strategy (mode 3): appropriation, empowerment, interdisciplinarity

11. Transdisciplinarity, or ”mode 2” ”Knowledge which emerges from a particular context of application with its own distinct theoretical structures, research methods and modes of practice but which may not be locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map.” Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994)

12. The Tendency to Hubris • transgressing established forms of quality control • ”a drift of epistemic criteria” (Elzinga) • transcending human limitations • ”converging technologies” (bio, info, cogno, nano) • neglecting public participation and assessment • lack of accountability and precaution • overemphasis on entrepreneurship • propagation of competition rather than cooperation

13. The Forces of Habit(us) • Technoscience primarily seen as providing new opportunities for scientists and engineers • Taught by restructuring established scientific and engineering fields: multi- or ”subdisciplinarity” • Politics and the rest of society left largely outside of research and education: ”outsourcing” of ethics • A continuing belief in separating experts and their knowledge from contexts of use

14. The Discipline as Habit(us) “A discipline is defined by possession of a collective capital of specialized methods and concepts, mastery of which is the tacit or implicit price of entry to the field. It produces a ‘historical transcendental,’ the disciplinary habitus, a system of schemes of perception and appreciation (where the incorporated discipline acts as a censorship).” Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004)

15. The Need for a ”Mode 3” At the discursive, or macro level • Sustainable innovation, connecting technological solutions to social and environmental problems At the institutional, or meso level • Responsible innovation, creating accountability procedures for science and engineering At the personal, or micro level • Community-oriented innovation, fostering innovation processes at the ”grass-roots”

16. A Hybrid Imagination • At the macro, or discursive level • connecting innovation cultures, integrating ideas • At the meso, or institutional level • making spaces for collective creativity • At the micro, or personal level • combining identities and forms of competence

17. For example: Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva and Carlo Petrini at a Slow Food Cafe

18. Vandana Shiva on GMOs The conflict over genetically engineered crops and foods is not a conflict between ”culture” and ”science”. It is between two cultures of science: one based on transparency, public accountability, and responsibility toward the environment and people and another based on profits and the lack of transparency, accountability, and responsibility. Stolen Harvest, 2000

19. For example: Fritjof Capra • physicist-turned-environmentalist • author of many popular books • founder of Center for Ecoliteracy

20. “Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life.”

21. For example: The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable. Anil Agarwal, the founder of CSE, shown at work with one of the six State of India’s Environment reports that the centre has put out since the 1980s.

22. …and, not to forget, the new president! • Raising money through the Internet • Mixing old and new forms of communication • Applying techniques of social networking • Connecting people and cultures virtually • In short, making appropriate use of technology

23. In conclusion... To counteract the dominance of the commercial culture, we need policies that explicitly support: • the civic, ”not-for-profit” culture of innovation, • interdisciplinary educational programs, • mixing expertise and social responsibility, • creating sites for collective learning, • in short, fostering a hybrid imagination!