Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T21:45:48.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who's Credible? Expressions of Consensus and Conflict in Focus Groups about DNA Patenting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Morten Andreasen
Morten Andreasen
Affiliation:
Danish Agency of Science, Technology and Innovation, FPC, Bredgade 40, DK-1260 København K, Denmark E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In this article I explore attributions of credibility, important to designations of ‘expertise’, within the area of DNA patenting. I define ‘credibility’ as a relationship of recognition people establish to other actors. Through repeated interviews, interspersed with the provision of information, I have identified two different ways in which respondents position themselves in relation other actors as a way of assessing their credibility: when assuming a ‘partisan position’, they explicitly draw on ideological convictions; when assuming a ‘hierarchical position’, the ranking of credibility depends on how informed and objective others are perceived to be. The positions embody different roles for the respondents as ‘citizens’ and as ‘lay persons’, respectively; that is, they indicate the possession of contrasting ideas about their own relevance in policy matters. This raises the question of how to interpret the fact that people disqualify themselves from policy making, seeing themselves as incompetent. Challenging current conflict-focused models in the public understanding of science (PUS) literature, I argue that the hierarchical position can be interpreted as a broader desire for consensus. In the patent area, I show that paying attention to the hierarchical position is crucial to understanding why an industry representative is regarded by some to be a credible ‘expert’. The study sheds light on the ‘public understanding of expertise’ more broadly, and within the bioeconomic field in particular.

Keywords

BioeconomyBiotechnologyCredibilityPatentingPublic Understanding of ExpertisePublic Understanding of Science
Type
Articles
Information
BioSocieties , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 25 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © London School of Economics and Political Science 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreasen, M. (forthcoming). Two stories about biotech patenting from ‘the silent majority’ in Europe. Public Understanding of Science.Google Scholar
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society—Towards a new modernity. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Blok, A., Jensen, M., & Kaltoft, P. (2008). Social identities and risk: Expert and lay imaginations on pesticide use. Public Understanding of Science, 17, 189–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (1999). The sociology of critical capacity. European Journal of Social Theory, 2, 359–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caulfield, T., Einsiedel, E., Merz, J.F., & Nicol, D. (2006). Trust, patents and public perceptions: The governance of controversial biotechnology research. Nature Biotechnology, 24, 1352–1354.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collins, H.M., & Evans, R. (2002). The third wave of science studies: Studies of expertise and experience. Social Studies of Science, 32, 235–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daston, L., & Galison, P. (1992). The image of objectivity. Representation, 40, 81–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demant, J. (n.d.). Focus groups as social experiments: The making of interesting data. Qualitative Inquiry.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. (1978). Cultural bias. London: Royal Anthropological Institute.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural theory. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, M. (1996). Thought styles. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Dutfield, G. (2003). Intellectual property rights and the life science industries. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Einsiedel, E.F. (2008). Publics and gene patents. In Einsiedel, E.F. (Ed.), Emerging technologies: Hindsight and foresight, 51–63. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press.Google Scholar
Evans, R. (2008). The sociology of expertise: The distribution of social fluency. Sociology Compass, 2, 281–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, R., & Collins, H. (2008). Expertise: From attribute to attribution and back again? In Hackett, E.J.Amsterdamska, O.Lynch, M. & Wajcman, J. (Eds), Handbook of science and technology studies, 609–630. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gaskell, G.S.S., Allansdottir, A., Allum, N.C., Corchero, C., Fischler, C., Hampel, J.et al. (2006). Europeans and biotechnology in 2005: Patterns and trends. Eurobarometer 64.3. Bruxelles: DG Research, European Commission.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1991). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gieryn, T.F. (1995). Boundaries of science. In Jasanoff, S., Markle, G.E., Petersen, J.C., & Pinch, T. (Eds), Handbook of science and technology studies, 393–443. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Gieryn, T.F. (1999). Cultural boundaries of science - Credibility on the line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gold, R.E., & Gallochat, A. (2001). The European biotech directive—Past as prologue. European Law Journal, 7, 331–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottweis, H., Braun, K., Haila, Y., Hajer, M., Loeber, A., Metzler, I.et al. (2008). Participation and the new governance of life. BioSocieties, 3, 265–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haddow, G., Laurie, G., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Hunter, K.G. (2007). Tackling community concerns about commercialisation and genetic research: A modest interdisciplinary proposal. Social Science & Medicine, 64, 272–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halkier, B. (2002). Fokusgrupper. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur and Roskilde Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Hilgartner, S. (1990). The dominant view of popularization: Conceptual problems, political uses. Social Studies of Science, 20, 519–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horst, M. (2003). Controversy and collectivity—Articulations of social and natural order in mass mediated representations of biotechnology. PhD thesis, Doctoral School on Knowledge and Management. Copenhagen Business School. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur.Google Scholar
Irwin, A., & Michael, M. (2003). Science, social theory and public knowledge. Maidenhead: Open UP.Google Scholar
Irwin, A., & Wynne, B. (1996). Introduction. In Irwin, A., & Wynne, B. (Eds), Misunderstanding science?, 1–17. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irwin, A. (2006). The politics of talk. Social Studies of Science, 36, 299–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on nature—Science and democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jasanoff, S. (2003a). (No?) Accounting for expertise. Science and Public Policy, 30, 157–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jasanoff, S. (2003b). Breaking the waves in science studies: Comment on H.M. Collins and Robert Evans, ‘The third wave of science studies’. Social Studies of Science, 33, 389–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kevles, D. (2002). A history of patenting life with comparative attention to Europe and Canada—A report to the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. Brussels: European Commission.Google Scholar
Michael, M. (1996). Ignoring science: Discourses of ignorance in the public understanding of science. In Irwin, A., & Wynne, B. (Eds), Misunderstanding science?, 107–125. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Moody, M., & Thévenot, L. (2000). Comparing models of strategy, interest, and the public good in French and American environmental disputes. In Lamont, M., & Thévenot, L. (Eds), Rethinking comparative cultural sociology—Repertoires of evaluation in France and the United States, 273–306. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
NOP Family & Research Business International (1998). Public perspectives on human cloning: A social research study. London: The Wellcome Trust.Google Scholar
Nowotny, H., Scott, P., & Gibbons, M. (2001). Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Nowotny, H. (2003). Democratizing expertise and socially robust knowledge. Science and Public Policy, 30, 151–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pálsson, G., & Rabinow, P. (2001). The Icelandic genome debate. Trends in Biotechnology, 19, 166–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parthasarathy, S. (2005). The patent is political: The consequences of patenting the BRCA genes in Britain. Community Genetics Supplement, 8, 235–242.Google ScholarPubMed
Peters, H. (2000). From information to attitudes? Thoughts on the relationship between knowledge about science and technology and attitudes towards technologies. In Dierkes, M., & von Grote, C. (Eds), Between understanding and trust—The public, science and technology, 265–287. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Porter, T.M. (1992). Introduction. Social Studies of Science, 22, 595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturgis, P., & Allum, N.C. (2004). Science in society: Re-evaluating the deficit model of public attitudes. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 55–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, S. (2001). What is the problem with experts? Social Studies of Science, 31, 123–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, N., & Nerlich, B. (2006). Use of the deficit model in a shared culture of argumentation: The case of foot and mouth science. Public Understanding of Science, 15, 331–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynne, B. (1991). Knowledges in context. Science Technology and Human Values, 16, 111–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynne, B. (1995). The public understanding of science. In Jasanoff, S., Markle, G.E.Petersen, J.C., & Pinch, T. (Eds), Handbook of science and technology studies, 361–388. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Wynne, B. (1996). Misunderstood misunderstandings: Social identities and public uptake of science. In Irwin, A., & Wynne, B. (Eds), Misunderstanding science?, 19–47. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Wynne, B. (2003). Seasick on the Third Wave? Subverting the hegemony of propositionalism. Social Studies of Science, 33, 401–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar