Showing papers in "Social Epistemology in 2014"

Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression

Abstract: Epistemic oppression refers to persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one’s contribution to knowledge production. The tendency to shy away from using the term “epistemic oppression” may follow from an assumption that epistemic forms of oppression are generally reducible to social and political forms of oppression. While I agree that many exclusions that compromise one’s ability to contribute to the production of knowledge can be reducible to social and political forms of oppression, there still exists distinctly irreducible forms of epistemic oppression. In this paper, I claim that a major point of distinction between reducible and irreducible epistemic oppression is the major source of difficulty one faces in addressing each kind of oppression, i.e. epistemic power or features of epistemological systems. Distinguishing between reducible and irreducible forms of epistemic oppression can offer a better understanding of what is at stake in deploying the term and when such deployment is apt.

Constructing the Meaning of Social Licence

Abstract: Large companies must increasingly satisfy not only the conditions of their formal licences, but also the concerns and expectations of host communities and broader society. This has led to the emergence, particularly in the minerals industry, of the notion of “social licence”, an interdiscursive term whose meaning is rarely interrogated. We use textual analysis to critically investigate the construction of social licence discourse in minerals companies’ sustainable development reports and at a recent industry conference. We find that the texts mystify the nature of agency, and privilege processes that maintain existing power relations. Through their partial accommodation of heterogeneous discourses, the texts downplay tensions and conflicts. We conclude that there is a need to reconceptualise the nature of company–stakeholder relationships through a more collaborative, dialogic and reflexive process, avoiding the binary state implied by the term licence.

Agnotology: Ignorance and Absence or Towards a Sociology of Things That Aren’t There

Abstract: The study of ignorance, or agnotology, has many similarities with studies of absence. This paper outlines a framework for agnotology which is shaped by interdisciplinary studies of both ignorance and absence, and identifies properties such as chronicity, granularity, scale, intentionality, and ontology in relation to epistemology as useful for studying ignorance. These properties can be used to compare various case studies. While not all problems of ignorance are problems of absent knowledge, those that are can gain by an examination of the literatures on absence and the concept of the privative. The lack of symmetry in explanation and representation are methodological challenges to studying ignorances and absences.

Discerning the Primary Epistemic Harm in Cases of Testimonial Injustice

Abstract: This article examines the primary epistemic harm of testimonial injustice, or, as defined by Miranda Fricker, the injustice of perceiving another epistemic agent as less credible due to an identity prejudice I first analyze Fricker’s account of the harm, which she posits in terms of a subject/object relation as “epistemic objectification” My analysis, however, shows that (1) testimonial injustice does not render its victim to an object-like status and (2) testimonial injustice necessarily treats its victim as a subject, albeit a truncated subject Drawing on the work of Ann Cahill and Simone de Beauvoir, I demonstrate that the primary harm of testimonial injustice is more aptly described in terms of a subject/other relation, or a relation that circumscribes the subjectivity of its victim within the confines of the perpetrator’s subjectivity Using these conceptual resources to examine the primary epistemic harm of testimonial injustice not only avoids the problems I raise with the notion of epistemic ob

Science and social license: defining environmental sustainability of Atlantic salmon aquaculture in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia

Abstract: Social license reflects environmental and social change, and sees community as an important stakeholder and partner. Science, scientists, and science policy have a key role in the processes that generate social license. In this paper, we focus on the interaction between science and social license in salmon aquaculture in south-eastern Tasmania. This research suggests that social license will be supported by distributed and credible knowledge co-production. Drawing on qualitative, interpretive social research we argue that targeted science, instilled by appropriate science policy, can underpin social license by supporting emerging, distributed, and pluralistic knowledge production. Where social license is important and environmental contexts are complex, such knowledge production might support environmental governance, and so improve outcomes in coastal zone management and beyond.

Can’t Climb the Trees Anymore: Social Licence to Operate, Bioenergy and Whole Stump Removal in Sweden

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of how the social licence to operate (SLO) of the Swedish forest industry has been developed over time. For many decades, the SLO has been implicitly operating, shaped by dominant discourses of the day. We can see these SLOs through the agrarian, industrial and post-industrial era. During this era, a focus on bioenergy has seen whole stump removal become a more mainstream practice. This practice gained increasingly widespread acceptance when framed as a necessary response to climate change. However, research has identified problems associated with whole stump removal, including decreased biodiversity, nutrient removal, soil acidification and mechanical soil preparation threatening soil carbon stores. In light of these recent developments, this paper examines the role of knowledge production and accepted discourses in the creation and maintenance of an industry’s SLO. By providing an overview of key legislative changes in the history of forest management alongside data from ...

Encountering Bioinfrastructure: Ecological Struggles and the Sciences of Soil

Abstract: What humans know about the soil has material implications for the future of life on Earth. This paper looks at how soil is in the process of becoming visible as a living world at the heart of an epoch marked by technoscientific management of the environment. Scientific knowledge of the natural world is encountering a range of collectives and individuals striving to renew humans’ relationships with non human and organic ways of life. Soil is an interesting case for the study of absence: all around, yet hardly apparent for many of us. Drawing upon Susan Leigh Star’s approach to “residues” and “infrastructures” allows soil to appear in all its ecological significance, as the final home to all residues and the dismissed infrastructure of bios. The aim of this essay is not only contributing to make soil visible, but to treat its passing into visibility as an event in its own right that reveals soil’s ambivalent material and cultural significance. As ecological visions come to reclaim this mistreated living eco...

Doing the social in social license

Abstract: A social license to operate (SLO) is said to result from a complex and sometimes difficult set of negotiations between communities and organizations (NGOs, government, and industry). Each stakeholder group will hold different views about what is important, what is true, and who can or cannot be trusted. This article reviews the contributions made in this special issue on SLO. It also sketches the benefits of applying phronesis, or a practical wisdom-based theorization, of how SLOs can be co-produced.

The Social License: Empowering Communities and a Better Way Forward

Abstract: The term social license is generally understood as an intangible representation of ongoing approval or acceptance of a project by affected communities, which can be withdrawn at any time, distinct from a legal or regulatory license granted by a government. This paper looks at the concept through the lens of the extractive sector in the developing world and explores the history of violations of land and human rights of indigenous and rural communities living around these resources. While corporate actors often maintain that acquiring a social license is voluntary and different from obtaining consent, this paper suggests instead that the idea of a license that can be withdrawn represents an assertion of power by people whose land and human rights have been consistently violated, and a recognition of that power by the corporate sector. This article will explore the relationship between the need for a social license and institutional characteristics related to land rights; the FPIC and CSR constructs as respo...

Can the “Social Licence to Operate” Concept Enhance Engagement and Increase Acceptance of Renewable Energy? A Case Study of Wind Farms in Australia

Abstract: Social licence to operate (SLO) is the ongoing acceptance or approval for a development that is granted by the local community and other stakeholders. From the current media and political attention on Australian wind farms, it appears that many specific wind farms, or indeed the industry as a whole, may not hold an SLO with affected stakeholders. This research was undertaken to examine whether the SLO might be a useful framework to enhance engagement and increase societal understanding of wind farms. Twenty-seven interviews across nine wind farms were conducted with stakeholders representing wind companies, local government authorities, local opposition, local support and turbine hosts. The interviews revealed a complexity of concerns that informed the stakeholders’ perspectives, including “game-changing” issues that may stand to significantly increase wind farm acceptance. The results are presented with practical steps towards the development of a preliminary working model of an SLO for Australian wind f...

Absences: Methodological Note about Nothing, in Particular

Abstract: This article considers the growing body of STS research on absences in technoscience. While solid conceptual ground has been made in theorizing different forms of absence and their social production, researchers have not paid sufficient attention to various methodological challenges that a focus on absences implies. How does one study what is not there? I offer 10 methodological considerations as a provisional foundation for an empirical program of research on absences and a brief illustration drawn from an ongoing study of absence in post-Katrina New Orleans.

A Social Licence for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage: How Engineers and Managers Describe Community Relations

Abstract: Although extensive research has been devoted to public perceptions and acceptance of controversial energy innovations, the perspectives of people developing and implementing such technologies are relatively under-examined. Other industries, such as mining, and social researchers have adopted the term “social licence to operate” (SLO) to conceptualise community–industry relationships. Despite its potential applicability to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology, SLO has received very little attention in this context, specifically from an engineering and managerial perspective. The internationally contested nature of CCS highlights the importance of examining how engineers and managers discuss and understand the term SLO. Given the central role of engineers and managers in developing CCS technology and contributing to the creation of the contexts in which people relate to it, knowledge of how they understand their connection to communities impacted by the technology is a key area requiring deve...

Assessing the Social Licence to Operate of Development Cooperation Organizations: A Case Study of Mercy Corps in Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia

Abstract: We examine the applicability of the concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO) for international humanitarian and development cooperation organizations. We review the relevant literature on SLO and derive criteria that can be applicable to the work of development agencies. We also examine the case of the international NGO, Mercy Corps, in the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia, specifically its Market Alliances against Poverty project. Using focus groups and key informant interviews, we sought to understand what would constitute an SLO for the local community in the context of a development intervention. Themes that emerged included: transparency and accountability; access to information; the potential benefits and dangers of innovations; the inspirational effect of the presence of an external organization; risks associated with loans and grants; and the reliability of intermediaries. Our results can be utilized by development practitioners and humanitarian organizations as well as academics who want t...

A Social Licence for Science: Capturing the Public or Co-Constructing Research?

Abstract: The “social licence to operate” has been invoked in science policy discussions including the 2007 Universal Ethical Code for scientists issued by the UK Government Office for Science. Drawing from sociological research on social licence and STS interventions in science policy, the authors explore the relevance of expectations of a social licence for scientific research and scientific contributions to public decision-making, and what might be involved in seeking to create one. The process of seeking a social licence is not the same as trying to create public or community acceptance for a project whose boundaries and aims have already been fully defined prior to engagement. Such attempts to “capture” the public might be successful from time to time but their legitimacy is open to question especially where their engagement with alternative research futures is “thin”. Contrasting a national dialogue on stem cells with the early history of research into bioenergy, we argue that social licence activities need to be open to a “thicker” engagement with the social. Co-constructing a licence suggests a reciprocal relationship between the social and the scientific with obligations for public and private institutions that shape and are shaped by science, rather than just science alone.

Politics of Matter: Justice and Organisation in Technoscience

Abstract: The technoscientific capacity to manipulate and remake the material substance of being is at the core of an expanding ontological imaginary that permeates culture in Global North societies. What are the political implications of this imaginary? What are the absences, the residues, the invisibilised practices and actors of technoscience’s ontological politics? The paper interrogates this form of politics, argues for the radical democratisation of technoscience and explores how it is possible to pose questions of justice without reducing the material to the social. It concludes with a discussion of the idea of crafting alternative ontologies as commitment to a material organisation of justice.

The Contemporary Debate on the Harmony between Islam and Science: Emergence and Challenges of a New Generation

Abstract: That Islam and science enjoy a harmonious relationship is frequently endorsed in learned as well in popular debates. Amongst the first scholars who have studied such ideas and their diffusion from an external perspective are Leif Stenberg and contributors to the special issue of Social Epistemology, both published in 1996. Drawing on Stenberg’s study, I argue that we can identify the emergence of a “new generation” of authors considering conceptual shifts at work in some contemporary authors. In the first section, I recall the ideas commonly evoked in order to substantiate the claim that Islam and science are in harmony, and their entanglement. In the second section, I reconstruct Stenberg’s analysis. In the third section, I trace a picture of the contemporary landscape; I linger on the two most systematic criticisms so far levelled at the advocates of the harmony between Islam and science, those of Hoodbhoy and Edis. In the fourth section, I narrow the expression “new generation” by referring to four spe...

Globalization and Discontent

Abstract: The concept of social license to operate was forged in the crucible between globalization—which has radically decentralized the ability of organizations to operate wherever they choose—and the rise of oppositional social movements, newly empowered to confront global actors infringing on their communities. This article reviews the central dilemma posed by social license to operate: whether it is business practice, sociological reality, or emerging form of governance, drawing on the insights and findings of the articles in this special issue. It then suggests three lines of future research for the critical social sciences. The article concludes that the principle shortcomings of the concept of social license to operate is the inevitability of the boundaries it draws between organizations and the communities they inhabit and the failure of the concept to acknowledge that transformation, not just operation, is almost always at stake in these encounters.

Presence from Absence: Looking within the Triad of Science, Technology and Development

Abstract: This paper begins with the Simmel triad, a unit formed by three different sides, in order to explore science and technology in the applied mainstream discourse of development. My analysis begins when development is oversimplified to an absence of science and technology. By placing the beliefs, values and knowledge that are embedded, produced and maintained within the triad of science, technology and development under the scholarly gaze, I illustrate the importance of understanding whether it is an absence or presence that is nurtured by the analysis and reproduced in the discourse. The paper begins with a short discussion of development as a mainstream discourse and moves into a discussion of studying the triad from the outside and inside. Using an informal case study of the Togolese educational and demographic document: statistiques scolaires I explore components of the development, science and technology triad from an inside perspective and place the who, what, where, when and how of the triad within so...

Opening the Black Box: The Social Outcomes of Scientific Research

Abstract: Society is increasingly asking federally funded science to demonstrate its returns on investment. This has spawned an emerging science of science and innovation policy community that seeks predictive knowledge to allow policymakers to more effectively steer the course of science toward social goals. This is a laudable effort, but it is making a “black box” out of the inevitable value judgments entailed in quantifying outcomes. A better approach would be to open the black box by engaging in fundamental inquiry about the good and we hope science will deliver. But this may be a utopian project.

Present Absences: Hauntings and Whirlwinds in “-Graphy”

Abstract: Whether it pertains to what is not considered, what cannot be determined, what is not allowed to be known, or what is deliberately concealed, absences figure as the constant shadows of what is made present by social research. This article explores the relation between what is presented and what is not by treating it first as a vexing conundrum for representation and then as a vehicle for understanding. The matters under examination include what is written about the social world as well as the methods of writing employed. This article seeks an orientation toward both aspects that attends to the binds, contradictions, and possibilities of depicting what is missing. That involves addressing how authors labor to render absences present, the criteria for assessment, as well as the metaphors that guide activities.

Contrastive self-knowledge

Abstract: In this article, I draw on a recent account of perceptual knowledge according to which knowledge is contrastive. I extend the contrastive account of perceptual knowledge to yield a contrastive account of self-knowledge. Along the way, I develop a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, regrets and so on) and suggest that a contrastive account of self-knowledge implies an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts (the concepts of belief, desire, regret and so on).

Downstream of the Experts: Trust-Building and the Case of MPAs

Abstract: In this paper I examine Grasswick’s theory of trust-building through knowledge-sharing across the scientific–lay divide. I apply this theory to the case of scientific–lay interactions in the development of marine protected areas (MPAs). This case-study not only supports Grasswick’s work, but suggests one friendly amendment to her theory. When it comes to trust-building through knowledge-sharing, the case of MPAs demonstrates that this sharing must be reciprocal.

Relativism and Uncertainty : A Response to Lukes and Riggio

Abstract: A new epistemology − or a mindset through which to see truth and knowledge in a particular light − has emerged and is increasingly shaping the worldview of people in the West. (And perhaps we shou ...