Report of the three-day workshop in Amsterdam, 21-24 June 2009

Background, objective and sponsors

The aim of the workshop was to bring together young scholars in STS (science and technology studies) or DS (Development Studies) from around the world with an interest in the ongoing transformation of ‘the Global South’ to discuss this theme and how their work relates to it. A second goal was to explore what agenda for research and collaboration should be pursued in science and technology studies (STS) and development studies (DS) to improve our understanding of the central issues and intellectual puzzles involved. Bringing together young scholars from such contexts may help to build network and alliances, promote research and reflection at the border between STS and DS and build capabilities for the ‘globalization’ of these fields in various ways.

Meetings of professional associations in science studies like 4S, SHOT and EASST primarily focus on science and technology in economically and technologically advanced societies. Although situations and developments in less developed countries and non-Western settings are certainly not absent from these meetings they remain marginal and the consequences for the intellectual and practical agenda’s are not systematically explored. The number of participants from non-US and non-EU countries is also low. Although the situation in Development Studies as a field is somewhat different as there is ample interest in the role of technology in the problems of so-called less developed countries, the systematic reflection on problems of scientific and technological change for development could be improved. Furthermore, a more systematic reflection on the boundaries, divergence and synergies around the boundaries between STS and DS could also be intellectually rewarding and pragmatically relevant.

The initiative for his workshop was taken by the authors of this report. They were soon after joined by Esha Shah in the organizing team. The workshop was supported financially and in other ways by the Netherlands Graduate School for Science, Technology and Culture (WTMC), graduate school CERES (development studies), the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), the Science Dynamics Foundation and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). The help of these organizations has been essential for the workshops success and is gratefully acknowledged.

Participants, speakers and programme

Twenty-one young scholars with roots and connections to a wide variety of countries participated in the workshop: Farah Ahmed (IDS, University of Sussex, UK), Diana Akullo (Asareca, Kampala, Uganda), Mamidipudi Annapurna (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Koen Beumer (Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy, the Netherlands), Catherine Button (Durham University, UK), David Bynoe (Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, Barbados), Joanna Dias (Coimbra University, Portugal), Nora Engel (UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands), Andres Hueso Gonzalez (Technical University Valencia, Spain), Prasanne Kolte (ITC, Enschede, the Netherlands), Merlyna Lim (Arizona State University, USA), Christine Luk (Arizona State University, USA), Andreas Mitzschke (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Cavelle Motilal (University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago), Thomas Mougey (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Bala Raju Nikku (Kadambari Memorial College of Science and Management, Nepal), Makoto Nishi (Kyoto University, Japan), Ilse Oosterlaken (Delft University, the Netherlands), Bernike Pasveer (ECPDM, the Netherlands), Julia Quartz (Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Christine Richter (ITC, the Netherlands).

A number of participants came directly from one of the developing countries. Subsidies from sponsors were used to support their participation. Although most participants are currently located at European and US institutions almost half of them do come from countries that belong to the Global South [1].

During the workshop a wide range of prominent invited speakers gave introductions and participated in panels. Their introductions led to lively debates with and amongst participants. The following speakers gave presentations and participated in the debates: Peter van Lieshout (WRR, the Netherlands), Arie Rip (UT, the Netherlands), Louk de la Rive Box (ISS, the Netherlands), Andy Stirling (University of Sussex, UK), Han van Dijk (WUR, the Netherlands), Paul Richards (WUR, the Netherlands), Mathew Kurian (UNESCO-IHE, the Netherlands), Annemarie Mol (UvA, the Netherlands), Irene Agyepong (Universiteit Utrecht / Ghana Health Service), Jack Spaapen (KNAW, the Netherlands) and Wiebe Bijker (UM, the Netherlands).

The program left ample room for informal discussion, work in small groups, and interaction with the invited speakers. Participants (and some of the invited speakers) worked together to prepare for plenary discussions on the last day about the validity of the diagnosis sketched above and the intellectual agenda’s and practical activities to be pursued. Presentations and discussions concentrated on the relations between policy making and academic work in STS and DS, discussion about scientific and technological dimensions of key issues in development: water, agriculture, health and cross-sectoral questions and entanglements. On the last day implications for capacity building, for the work of the participants and for future networking and collaboration were discussed.

Workshop outcomes: Setting the scene (day 1)

The opening of the workshop was a presentation by Peter van Lieshout, a scholar working in the border zone between science and policy (WRR). His presentation was directed at some of the core issues in both STS and DS and focused on the interaction between knowledge and development. He took a macro perspective, showing with various figures and diagrams that there are many assumptions about a positive connection between advances in knowledge and social progress (development) but that very few of these are in fact sustained by the available data. Some figures even show a negative impact (in particular of R&D). Where data show a positive trend, as in rising educational enrolments, for example, additional information about the situation in schools raises concerns about the substantive value of the observed changes. What is underneath these macro correlations, the processes and practices which are supposed to connect knowledge and development, is highly understudied. So there is plenty of unexplored terrain for STS and DS to operate in.

Discussants in the panel after his presentation (Arie Rip, Louk de la Rive Box and Andy Stirling) took up the challenge and sketched some possible routes whereby STS and DS could cooperate. Rip pressed the issue of local knowledge and the creation of linkages between these forms of informal knowledge and the more formalized and Western knowledge processes. Box stressed the exploitative nature of many of the knowledge ‘exchange’ processes in development where mostly the Western parties, even public universities, make a profit from training people from developing countries. Stirling stressed that exploring such connections requires a differentiation or ‘unpacking’ of knowledge. It makes little sense to talk about knowledge (or technology) in too broad terms. The discussion should be much more specific. Panel members and Van Lieshout agreed that skill and skill training require more attention as well as on the options to make new connections and changes with a variety of forms of knowledge and technologies, something Stirling labeled as ‘recombination potential’.

The afternoon programme further elaborated the morning discussion. Arie Rip, Han van Dijk and Andy Stirling presented some of their work and thoughts about the workshop theme. Rip pointed out that developing countries have a lot to offer in terms of knowledge about situations where new technology is taken up or programmes for poverty alleviation. There is a lot going on in so-called grassroots organizations who often work below the radar of formal institutions, including scholars from STS and DS. He proposed a model that stresses ‘circulation of knowledge’ and ‘knowledge blending’. Van Dijk stressed the role of power and governance structures. In developing countries these issues are unavoidably complex in ways that differ from Western nation-states, not only because of the many parties involved but also because often a variety of (local) juridical systems interact with each other, often in contestation. Stirling picked up the power issue and stressed that there is a power issue within knowledge and vice versa and the two should be studied in their conjunction and entanglement with one another. He further elaborated on the role of technology and came up with three crucial elements in the processes of technological change: directionality, meaning a focus on divergent framings and pathways in knowledge technology, distribution within processes of technological change of power and explicit normativity. The level of diversity clarifies how such processes are open to engagement and plural commitments.

The issues presented by the speakers were subsequently taken up in the various discussion groups in the second half of the afternoon. See day 3 for the outcomes of these discussions.

Exploring agriculture, health and water (day2)

For the second day a programme was designed that allowed the overall discussion of day one to become more concrete and issue-specific, focusing on agriculture, health and water respectively.

The theme ‘agriculture’ was introduced by Paul Richards. His central argument, using the example of rice improvement in West-Africa, is that agricultural research institutes work in hierarchical structures, assuming that innovation has to come from above, where innovation (as recombination) is something that happens everywhere. This was illustrated with the example of NERICA, a cross introduced by formal institutes who overlooked that farmers were using similar crosses in various ways. STS (social science more generally) has something to contribute by helping to understand such local innovation processes and recombining this with science. It is through local innovation that the poor ‘speak’ and social science (a technographic approach) can help to make these ‘voices’ heard.

The theme ‘health’ was introduced by Irene Agyepong. She focused on the interaction between science and policy, emphasizing how formal organizations for health care in Ghana have dynamics that tends to exclude the poorest in their services. Using the case of the implementation of a National Health Care System, she showed how science can run into conflict with formal institutes when policy makers are confronted with the findings of science that such exclusion mechanisms actually undermine the goal of the health system. She posed the question for the research agenda of ST&D studies: How to deal with a situation where conflict between science and policy replaces consensus building.

Based on these two presentations a lively discussion emerged, focusing on the question how STS/DS-type research can help to create science-based policies that are more inclusive for the poor.

The last theme was about ‘water’ and introduced by Matthew Kurian. Like the previous speaker he focused on the science-policy interaction but took a more systemic approach and showed the weaknesses and flaws of much of the scientific knowledge that informs policies in the area of water management. Much of the policies rely on economic data, including its in-built assumptions about methodological individualism and economic rationality. Moreover, there are major knowledge gaps or unknowns about which science often claims to provide reliable information. Policy makers and scientists might see these limitations but tend to ‘repair’ them with more science. This overlooks the option that there is a lot of knowledge in practice. Participation or ‘adaptive management’ may be better strategies to reduce the inefficiencies and high transaction costs of the science-policy nexus.

The last presentation of the day was given by Annemarie Mol who drew some cross-cutting lines between the earlier presentations. Her argument was that each form of science ‘cuts up the world’ in a different way. Where is the overlap and where can commonalities emerge? One way to deal with this is to focus more on movements of ‘things’ (people, goods, facts, interventions etc) but that alone is not enough. Science needs to be more flexible and deal with alternative ways of cutting up the world’ and alternative movements. A new approach to methodology is required for this, making it more reflexive. Key elements for such a flexible methodology are checklists, tinkering and case studies.

Presenters were then asked to sit together for a panel discussion with the audience. The presentations clearly triggered the audience and a lively debate emerged, primarily adding elements to what the presenters had said. One response raised the issue of learning, something that seems excluded in the concept of tinkering. Another commenter pointed at the longer-term historical changes in development and its meaning in a wider geopolitical context with a historically strong emphasis on development thinking in the US. Besides geopolitical variation, development could also be separated into immanent and intentional development processes, the latter receiving much attention in Development Studies. Others argued this distinction is basically a matter of scale. From a general, distant perspective development seems immanent, but all sorts of intended activities can be found within with a closer look. It is this complex of interactions that deserves more research.

Capacity building (day 3)

The last day started with short presentations by Jack Spaapen and Esha Shah. Jack works for the international bureau of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The KNAW supported the workshop in all sorts of ways and offered us hospitality at their beautiful Amsterdam location. Jack has been linchpin between the organizers and the academy; without him this workshop would not have taken place. So the organizers thanked him and via him the academy for his efforts.

Jack explained in his short presentation how the support for the workshop fits with the overall policies of the academy to promote the development of scientific capability in the Global South and the reinvigoration of the Academy’s international committee. New fellowship programmes and cooperative programmes are currently drawn up.

The second presentation was by Esha Shah who critically pointed out how all notions of capacity building draw on particular conceptions of development of a country over time, from ‘take-off’ models via neo-liberal assertion to cooperative conceptions. In discussing specific policies, proposals and activities it is very important to scrutinize these for such assumptions and models and how they affect possible outcomes.

In the discussion about these introductions the question how to conceptualize ‘knowledge infrastructures’ and ‘transfer mechanisms’ surface as key concepts to be clarified in relation to development policies locally as they are entertained locally as well as internationally. Without such clarification all discussions will remain vague and unfocused.

Mind the gap

In the remaining part of the meeting the discussions groups reported on the outcomes of their deliberations over the past two days. All sorts of ideas and suggestions came up and were reported. There is always the danger that discussions at the end of a workshop end up in agreement on buzzwords as a basis for a feel good atmosphere just before departure. That easily amounts to replacing the pet categories of others (national innovation systems were mentioned as an example) by at least equally fuzzy notions of our own making. As an antidote to such a course an entertaining and rewarding part of the final discussions was devoted to a discussion of the frequent use of the word ‘gap’ in our (and others’) deliberations about STS, DS and development policies. The rhetorical trope of the ‘gap’ often functions to designate something we should worry about, bridge or at least ‘mind’. A graphical display of sorts ‘gaps’ was presented by one of the groups as part of a plea for more intellectually productive and interesting ways of engaging with gap-language and what it refers to. As was pointed out, gaps are normally already filled with regulations, politics. It would be wrong to treat them as static or voids. The gap is often seen as an obstacle, a problem, but it can also be seen as a space with potential (stopping harmful technologies for instance). It is a space for learning as well as a space for bottom-up demand. Gaps offer opportunities for recombination as well as boundary struggles and fencing that are not necessarily bad things. Both as a trope and in terms of the realities they refer to gaps should be explored, enjoyed and used as occasions to learn instead of only using them rhetorically as underspecified sources of nuisance that stand in the way of progress.

Travelling knowledge, capacity building and the export of institutional formats

One use gap-language refers to the possibilities for knowledge to travel and the difficulties of deliberations across disciplinary, geographical and institutional gaps and barriers. Places where exchanges take place are important research sites, how are these structured locally and tied to larger networks and configurations. To what extent are they embodied in people at key nodes and in material facilities and their locations? How do issues and approaches become translated in travelling from one site to another? How are approaches from STS and DS themselves transformed and adjusted to local varieties of knowledge and what does this imply for the way we go about our own projects.

Discussion about development policies are about promoting the travel of knowledge, ontologies and methodologies from one part of the world to another. So currently there is a lot of talk about setting up and strengthening academies of science and universities after models provided by Europe and the USA. With this comes the promotion of particular role models for the scientists that may diverge from conceptions of knowledge and knowledge-production as they can be found in institutions in economically less-developed countries. With special reference to Indonesia one participant pointed out that academic and professional work are often closely tied in such countries compared to scientistic ideologies about pure research that are floating around. Such ideologies are often already radically at odds with the realities of the Western knowledge economies, and to build up capacities in the ‘South’ on the basis of models that are already antiquated in the ‘North’ might well be a bad idea. More symmetrical reflections on the interrelations between knowledge production and practical involvements in different regions of the world might be helpful as a defensive against thoughtless copying and exporting of institutional formats and developing arrangements more in line with widely cherished goals and local conditions. As Annapurna – a participant from India with wide experience in working with local NGOs and networks-pointed out, scholars should try to make theories that you can easily imagine to be applicable.

Where do we go from here?

The final round of assessments and comments by participants about the workshop led to the conclusion that the participants want more and that we should avoid that this will turn to be a one-off event. As many of them pointed out, the meeting had encouraged and stimulated their thinking about, their own work, research or otherwise. It had made them aware of colleagues in other places working on closely similar problems experiencing similar challenges and frustrations. To continue to share experiences, communicate results and to take part in the intellectual discourse in and between STS and DS, research and policy making was collectively endorsed. It was also pointed out that to pursue the goals of the workshop would require more efforts to get funding to allow people from ‘the South’ to participate. Their participation in the meetings of international societies requires funding, wherever they are organized. The claim by the organizers that we should try to find money to organize similar workshops and summer schools in the Southern hemisphere and to promote South-to-South as well as South-North exchanges and development of inclusive agenda’s was greeted with enthusiasm and several people volunteered to help make that happen. So next stop? Barbados? Mozambique? Indonesia?

Notes

1. By ‘Global South’ we mean countries that are categorized by the IMF as having ‘emerging and developing economies’. See: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/weodata/groups.htm#cc (13/08/09)