Sheila Jasanoff: localizing the global

Abstracts

Em tempos em que todo conhecimento é 'situado' e não mais 'universal' e 'neutro', a tradução da reflexão de Sheila Jasanoff sobre "como dirigir para o bem nossa habilidade inventiva, profundamente humana" coloca uma questão para a academia brasileira: como 'situar' essa reflexão? Se o tempo é de mudança para o Ocidente imperial, é plausível aproveitar esse tempo para problematizarmos os "blocos constituintes" da razão pública no Brasil. E não há motivo para que não consideremos as sinalizações que vêm de Harvard não mais para ser tomadas como saberes privilegiadamente autorizados, de resto inadmissíveis em um mundo que se quer 'desplatonizado', mas sim como proposições a ser 'situadas' em processos de escolhas e transformações.

Ocidente; Brasil; império; tecnociência; Sheila Jasanoff (1944- )

SOURCES

Sheila Jasanoff: localizing the global

Ivan da Costa Marques^I; Vitor Andrade Barcellos^II; Antonio Arellano Hernández^III; Sandra Braman^IV; Giuseppe Cocco^V; José Augusto Pádua^VI; Regina Cândida Ellero Gualtieri^VII

^IProfessor/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Av. Atlântica, 822 22010-000 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil [e-mail]

^IIMaster's candidate/UFRJ. Rua Comendador Queiroz, 78, casa 4 24230-220 - Niterói - RJ - Brazil [e-mail]

^IIIProfessor and researcher/Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. San Rodolfo, 106 - Plazas de San Buenaventura 50110 - Toluca - Estado de México - Mexico [e-mail]

^IVProfessor/University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 210 Johnson Hall 2522 E. Hartford Avenue 53211 - Milwaukee - WI - US [e-mail]

^VProfessor/UFRJ Rua Lauro Muller, 455 - 4° andar 22290-160 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil [e-mail]

^VIAssociate professor/UFRJ. Largo de São Francisco de Paula, 1, sala 205 20051-070 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil [e-mail]

^VIIProfessor/Universidade Federal de São Paulo. Estrada do Caminho Velho, 333 07252-312 - Guarulhos - SP - Brazil [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

At a time when all knowledge is 'situated' and no longer 'universal' or 'neutral', the translation of Sheila Jasanoff's reflections about "how we should deploy for the good our profoundly human ingenuity" raises a question for Brazilian academia: how to 'situate' this reflection? If times are changing for the imperial West, it is plausible to take advantage of this time to problematize "the proper building blocks" of public reason in Brazil. And there is no reason why we should not consider the indications coming from Harvard. They are no longer to be taken as privileged authorized sources of knowledge, moreover unacceptable in a world that deems itself 'deplatonized', but rather as propositions to be 'situated' in processes of choice and transformation.

Keywords: West; Brazil; empire; science and technology; Sheila Jasanoff (1944- ).

A pioneer in research and education, Sheila Jasanoff is one of the leading figures in the emerging field of science, technology and society (STS) studies. In 1991 she founded the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Cornell, which she went on to head for many years. Besides publishing numerous articles, Sheila Jasanoff is also the author or editor of over a dozen books. Having served as a visiting professor at universities in the United States, Europe and Japan, she is currently Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, a prestigious position at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. However, leaving these credentials to one side, there are still other reasons why it is important to translate "Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science", published over five years ago, for a Brazilian readership.

The article translated here, which Sheila Jasanoff presented when she visited Rio de Janeiro in 2008

In "Biotechnology and Empire", Jasanoff highlights the agency of science and technology, basing herself adeptly and historically on the materiality of biotechnology to show that "the fabrication of empire proceeds not through any single grand gesture of unification", purifying essences, "but through a series of contingent, overlapping, altogether human practices that build coherence and cohesion while staving off dispersal". Empires juxtapose heterogeneous elements, configuring, according to the author, "places of hybrid identities, with all the tensions for regularity and order that hybridity entails". In other words, empires are fabricated less like asphalt and more like favelas. Jasanoff goes on to say that biotechnology operates at the tensions between hybridity (still relatively disordered, it must be noted, but with the potential to be arranged differently) and the order and regularity sought for the governance of the empire. She indicates four dimensions of standardizing action to show how biotechnologies operate in interaction with hybrids in the fabrication of empires: (1) Should 'golden rice', engineered to produce nutrients of medicinal value, be considered a food or a drug? (ontological dimension); (2) Are putatively scientific risk assessments the only way to understand genetically modified (GM) products? (epistemic dimension); (3) Does experience not show us that there are always unforeseen effects in the transfer from laboratory conditions to the field, where they are invariably exposed to uncontrolled associations of technology, environment and human behavior? (socio-ecological dimension); (4) Is industrial agriculture not organized and managed on the basis of principles that differ from those that small farms are based on, yielding divergent outcomes when it comes to human solidarity and the environment? (forms of life dimension). By showing how biotechnologies incline processes towards standardization, Jasanoff shows us biotechnology in action.

In her article, Jasanoff intends to cast light on a new order, but, like all people, she is inescapably bound to her place and her time. And the time-place she writes from is Harvard, a leading center of education for America's elite and one of the main 'centers of calculation' that produce and spread the standardizing propositions adopted around the world today. In other words, Harvard is particularly instrumental in maintaining and continuously building the imperial West upon making propositions of 'designs on Nature', to borrow the intriguing title of Jasanoff's (2007) book on science and democracy in Europe and the United States. The propositions formulated and stabilized at Harvard, whether from the life sciences or social sciences (a troublesome division), are spread with greater ease than any other propositions, as if they were preordained to become stabilized facts or scientific truths, given their original status as propositions established in an institution at the heart of the construction of so-called reliable knowledge in the imperial West. It is therefore not unreasonable to suggest that the issue of governance of empires is a particularly hot topic for Harvard precisely at a time when great disputes are forcing changes in the permanent fabrication of this imperial West, and its cohesion is under fire, given that "Euro-American metaphysics" (Law, 2004) itself must give up the universality and neutrality of its modern essences if it is to negotiate with the new centers emerging in the Orient: China and India.

Obviously, Jasanoff writes from where she is; she can literally do no differently. However, the knowledge she constructs, while it can no longer be universal or neutral (this dream is over), can certainly be translated/transferred/modified/reinvented and situated locally. Propositions such as hers always bring to light juxtapositions of heterogeneous elements which can ultimately shape facts or institutions, or even empires, but these propositions depend on what is done with them, on how they are used and modified in the long run. I therefore believe that Jasanoff's generous reflections on "how we should deploy for the good our profoundly human ingenuity" raise an issue for 'us' in Brazilian academia. What can we do with STS studies? Or, to take the specifics of the situation to the extreme: what can we do with this reflection by Sheila Jasanoff?

The publication of the article in Portuguese, together with commentaries, provides the opportunity to take a proactive stance towards Jasanoff's ideas. If times are changing for the imperial West, it is reasonable for us to also seize the unique opportunities these times offer so that in Brazil we can problematize the "building blocks of public reason" (Jasanoff, 2008, p.779). And there is no reason why we should not take the signs from Harvard not as finished models, for this would be out of step with the reality of a deplatonized world, but as possibilities for choice and transformation.

We have invited scholars whose work is related more or less closely to what Sheila Jasanoff presents in this translated article to contribute to a debate designed to highlight the advantages and qualities and note the failings or limitations of the text, and also to offer qualified appraisals for or against it. The result brings together the ideas of five very different scholars, united by the similarity of a common interest. I take this opportunity to record my special thanks to Antonio Arellano, Giuseppe Cocco, José Augusto Pádua, Regina Gualtieri and Sandra Braman, whose collaboration has been essential for making this project a reality.

Ivan da Costa Marques

REFERENCES

• JASANOFF, Sheila. Making order: law and science in action. In: Hackett, Edward J. et al. (Ed.). The handbook of science and technology studies Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p.761-786. 2008.
• JASANOFF, Sheila. Designs on Nature: science and democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2007.
• LAW, John. After method: mess in social science research. London; New York: Routledge. 2004.
• RORTY, Richard. Phony science wars. The Atlantic Monthly, Washington, v.284, n.5, p.120-122. 1999.

¹

Sheila Jasanoff is also an activist. Focusing on the relationships between science, law and governance, she pays equal attention to the quality of her academic output and an active effort to make it politically meaningful, linking it to works that are "far more sensitive to possibilities for activism and social change than most canonical work" (Jasanoff, 2008, p.774). In her view, STS studies are uniquely positioned to "explore and question the hidden normativities underpinning the demarcations that matter in contemporary society ... the divides that consistently separate the weak from the strong, the rich from the poor, the disabled from the competent, and the socially marginal from the powerful and privileged" (Jasanoff, 2008, p.780).

²

, starts out with a crucial issue for STS studies: how do entities maintain cohesion and resist dispersal? In a 'platonized' world, all entities, from atoms to democracies, are born cohesive because they are attributed with an essence, a stable concept, with any lack or loss of cohesion being explained by the impurities that taint the concrete points of reference.

³

But important branches of STS studies offer a radically relational view of a world in flux, a world that is 'deplatonized', where cohesion is at stake: if everything is in permanent flux, if everything is provisional and tends towards dispersal, how can cohesion be obtained so that atoms, democracies or empires can be referred to with any degree of certainty?

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 Oct 2012
• Date of issue
  Sept 2012