Knowledge in Plural Context: Science, Technology, and Society Studies in Switzerland

A Report of the Summer School in Lausanne, 11-14 of September 2001

The Summer School “Knowledge in Plural Context” held at the University of Lausanne and the Federal Institute of Technology was the result of a stimulating process of application and invitation. The program of the four-day conference consisted of four types of events: plenary sessions, workshop sessions, roundtables, and social scientific happenings. About 85 participants, most of them doctoral students and post-doc’s, were welcomed with a Book of Abstracts. The opening plenary was conceived as an encounter and exchange between Helga Nowotny and Michel Callon. Those two tireless researchers, who never met before, have published books in 2001 about science, decision, and uncertainty, and have developed similar models of democracy with regards to scientific and technological development. Both contributions, supported with a paper and followed by a discussion, have set the thematic perspective of the Summer School. This event was followed by a set of three parallel sessions. The guest speakers turned into discussants in the workshop sessions. One year earlier, they were contacted by the organizers with particular demands: aside from their own talk, these personalities were asked to be discussant in some workshops, and to participate as much as they can throughout the conference. They were chosen not only because of their reputation, but also with regards to the way they work with juniors. This is how Michel Callon, Vololona Rabeharisoa, and Alberto Cambrosio participated the whole week, while Wiebe Bijker, Helga Nowotny, Frank Fischer and Sally Wyatt stayed as many days as possible, all contributing to a warm and stimulating atmosphere of work. After the parallel sessions, everybody was invited to the first social event of the Summer school: the public ceremony of the recently created Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology, and Society. Aside of wine, grapes and cheese, there was a contest with surrealistic questions like “what the letters S.T.S. stand for”; the winners received huge Berlin keys of chocolate.

This intense first day of the conference was the 11th of September. As organizers, we have been very lucky to see all American guests already in Europe, and all participants coming by plane arriving on time. Surprisingly, the world events did not interfere with the unfolding of the conference’s program. The people were occupied with the terrorist attack on New York at breakfast and dinner, although everybody was concentrating on the work during the sessions. We have been living in another reality, like within a bubble, for the time of the conference. The morning of the 12th started with Alberto Cambrosio exploring the Plural Context of Biomedicine, followed by Vololona Rabeharisoa raising the fascinating issue of Patient Organizations and the Mobilization of Research. During the afternoon, six parallel sessions were held, some of which dealt with Plural Expertise of Risk, The Influence of Research Policy on Knowledge Production, How Subjects and Objects Connect Plural Context, while the day before we occupied ourselves with Assessing Radical Technological Change, STS and Normativity, etc. Then, a special roundtable was organized at night about the development of STS studies and research in Switzerland. The participation of Wiebe Bijker, who lived through a similar process years ago in the Netherlands, and of colleagues from Cornell, encouraged Swiss participants to cope with disciplinary and institutional obstacles to the development of STS research in Switzerland (see below).

The third day started with Wiebe’s talk on Research and Technology for Development, a new project of the EU with African and Caribbean countries where STS is challenged to contribute, and Sally Wyatt’s Using Personal Knowledge and Autobiographical Methods in STS. The afternoon was again occupied with the parallel sessions, including a double one about Boundaries> Work: Setting and Crossing Boundaries in Science and Technology, another entitled Knowledge Society at Stake. There were many sessions we cannot mention, for instance all those dealing with information technology. At night, a musician introduced the main reception of the Summer School. A text about Technology and Music supported his performance. Pierre AudÈtat took special care in playing a few tunes on piano and sampler together, prior to the discussion.

The last day started with Frank Fischer on Citizens, Experts, and the Environment before shifting to the closing theme of the Summer school: Science and its Publics. After an introductory talk by Pierre Saliot of the Cite des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, a roundtable was held with representatives of Universities, Museums, the Media, the Parliament, and Science policy. The closing event was a general discussion about science in the public sphere in Switzerland; this theme became popular after the particularly hot campaign about genetic engineering in 1998 before a referendum. Most of the participants expressed their satisfaction before leaving Lausanne, congratulating the organizers for the quality of work and the good atmosphere which greatly contributed to the success of the Summer School. The four days were filled with eight key contributions in plenary sessions, fifteen overcrowded workshops (with sixty-two presentations), two plenary roundtables, and two social happenings. About a quarter of the participants were from abroad and many of them afforded themselves their trip up to the Swiss border. Near half of the participants were women. All this has been made possible by a dynamic context and a collective process which might be of interest to the observer.

The landscape of “science, technology and society” studies in Switzerland evolved from almost nothing to a structured and differentiated field of research within a few years. The early 90s witnessed the appearance of the ESST Master’s Degree program, which is now located at the edge of the country (the French speaking part). At the same time other actors were trying to encourage this field of study to develop within the social sciences. In the mid-90s, a prestigious academic institution, the ETH of Zurich, decided to refresh its old fashion concept of “humanities for engineers” with a bright new place dedicated to the dialogue between disciplines, philosophy of science, and arts - the Collegium Helveticum. Demonstrating the seriousness of its project, the ETH appointed Prof. Helga Nowotny to lead the Collegium. In the Swiss Confederation, a country of 7 million inhabitants, composed of 26 member states, with about 10 universities including the Federal Institute of Technology, other scholars and young researchers were working in the STS field although without much contact. In the meantime, a research committee was formed within the Swiss society of sociology to create a virtual, or real, house for STS studies. The research committee made an application to a special priority program dedicated to help the social sciences, and manage to organize the first STS Spring School at the University of Zurich in 1999. The week-long event gathered about a hundred people with various backgrounds and revealed a surprisingly rich interest for this domain. The need for a second event of the kind in a near future was clearly established, and Lausanne, where several small teams of STS researchers are active, was chosen. This was the context and the origin of the Summer school.

The organization of the Summer school benefited from two different processes, a local one, and a national one. Over the course of 2000, the research committee grew and decided to become autonomous; that’s why the assembly decided to create a permanent association of academic character to promote STS studies in the country. At the local level, an organizing committee, gathering forces spread out both at the University and the Institute of Technology in Lausanne started with a Call for Participation. To say a word about the funding, it has been an architecture of different sources, tailor-made for fifty participants, though we ended with more than eighty. The CFP, entitled “Knowledge in Plural Context”, was designed to cover the spread of the field while still being focused on hybrid forms of knowledge and heterogeneous fora. Apparently, everybody found his or his place within this setting. A separate Call for the sessions used the electronic means of the Association, and circulated information back and forth, allowing a dynamic process of session applications. Many individual applications were received by organizers. The Summer School “Knowledge in Plural Context” greatly helped to assess the potential of STS studies in Switzerland, and gave a thrust to the Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology, and Society (http://www.sts.unige.ch/).

The author works at the Observatoire EPFL, Science, Politique, SociÈtÈ, Ecublens, Switzerland.