Věda, technologie a společnost: konference, semináře, přednášky

Vystoupení na Annual Conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, Canada, 11.-13. října 2007 (Sekce 8.1: Managing nature)

We study processes by which the European nature-reserve project NATURA 2000 is being implemented in the Czech Republic. These processes involve production and mobilisation of expertise as well as political negotiations and decision-making. Expert knowledge and scientific criteria were to play a decisive role in this project, any other criteria being only secondary. An extensive and systematic review of the state of nature was initiated. In the beginning, exhaustive catalogues of biotopes were created so that any piece of landscape could be classified during the subsequent fieldwork. Hundreds of collaborators of varying professional and scientific background were then hired to undertake an unprecedented mapping of the Czech nature. On the basis of such a mapping, lists of protected areas were created, negotiated and proposed for approval. We discuss these processes and procedures in order to highlight diversity of interests, strategies, practical purposes and applications that all together contribute to the creation of above-mentioned catalogues, maps, and lists (as “boundary objects” of a kind). Above all, we are interested in how the business of expert knowledge production and evaluation was from the very beginning intertwined with everyday administrative work of responsible regional bodies or with the political agenda of environmentalist NGOs. In conclusion, we confront such “messy” practical local arrangements with the primacy of purely expert criteria emphasised by the official NATURA 2000 documents and by participants in particular controversies over the proposed areas of protection.

Vystoupení na 2. mezinárodní konferenci Interdisciplinary social sciences, University of Granada, Španělsko, 10.-13. července 2007

Vystoupení na 2. mezinárodní konferenci Interdisciplinary social sciences, University of Granada, Španělsko, 10.-13. července 2007

Vystoupení na 9. pracovní konferenci Biografu, Borek u Suchomast, 25.-27. května 2007

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)

Vystoupení na mezinárodní konferenci Science and democracy: A new frontier between Eastern and Western Europe?, The Nobel Museum & Södertörn University College, Stockholm, 4.-6. září 2006

The situation in contemporary Czech Republic provides numerous examples showing that experts and scientists keep enjoying an unchallenged and privileged status of neutral arbiters, situated out of the political arena. Although comparisons between the post-communist East and (capitalist) West are always at risk of being schematic and inadequate, it seems that such de-politicized perception of science is much stronger in the Eastern Europe than in most Western European countries. Underdevelopment of STS (Science and technology studies) in the post-communist East is part of this diagnosis. Different political cultures of expertise in the “new” and “old” EU member states might even turn into sources of tension and misunderstanding on the level of particular problems and controversies. In my paper I would like to make the difference and its roots more understandable. I will discuss the political status of science under the communist regime and its implications for the development after 1989. That time, in the Czech Republic, science and expertise were to be “finally liberated” from the burden of the political, with the hope that this de-politicization would bring us closer to Western democracies. This was a huge misapprehension, however, since Western democracies were at the very same time shifting towards a kind of “re-politicization” of the realm of science and technology. Propensity toward de-politicization was further increased, again quite paradoxically, by the process of accession of the Czech Republic to the EU. This process, simply put, had the form of purely technical implementation of unquestionable measures and principles. Although my presentation will take empirical evidence and case examples mostly from the Czech Republic, it may open a more general discussion about science and expertise in other post-communist countries as well.

Vystoupení na mezinárodním workshopu Promises of science (řada setkání Science, or else), Villa Lanna, Praha, 14.-15. ledna 2006

Nanotechnology is a privileged and promising field of contemporary research. What seemed to be a science-fiction in Drexler’s book Engines of creation published in 1986 is becoming, at least in part, a matter of serious scientific debates. It is generally accepted that nanotechnologies are going to profoundly change our world and, indeed, ourselves. Applications in medicine and environmental politics are emphasised as examples of improvements brought about by this research field.  Promises that are articulated by promoters of “nano” are relatively widely debated. But what about those issues implied by nanotechnologies, but usually not included in explicitly stated promises? What about hidden or under-articulated parts of nano-sciences? Besides potential risks associated with “nano”, there is an important ethical dimension (reaching far beyond the usual issues of scientific ethics) to be discussed. I will briefly sketch specificities of these ethical issues as well as their current reflections in the politics of nano-related research.

Přednáška v rámci cyklu Klíčové texty pro sociální antropologii, katedra antropologie FHS UK

Vystoupení na 5. mezinárodní konferenci k tématu Conflict in identities, identities in conflict, FSS MU v Brně

When participating in environmental controversies, social actors engage not only in arguing, but also in various forms of “identity work”. By articulating the subject of a controversy, they often imply definitions of themselves and of their opponents. Examples from my recent empirical work suggest that flexibility, mutability and multiplicity of these identities are an important resource for conflict resolution. Although this may sound as a typically abstract academic view of the problem I will discuss its practical political relevance.

Přednáška v rámci pondělních seminářů CTS (17h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)

Přednáška v rámci čtvrtečních seminářů CTS (10-12h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)

Vystoupení na společné výroční konferenci Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) a European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), Paříž, Francie; 25.-28. srpna 2004

This paper is based on a detailed empirical case study of a long-term public controversy over the construction of a highway by-pass around the city of Plzen (in South-Western Bohemia, Czech Republic). The controversy involved a wide range of actors: local activists, an environmentalist NGO, politicians of all levels, experts, developers, state and regional administration, and media people. Two variants of the by-pass were at stake: one of them gradually appearing better and better, attractive for experts, but existing as if only on paper, while the other was becoming more and more real, pushed through mainly by local politicians, and actually constructed. Although the story could be narrated in terms of an unequal struggle between environmentalists and small villages on one side and politicians, economic lobbies and municipality of a big city on the other, we will try to follow a more subtle and complex story-line, which focuses upon different strategic usages of science and politics. Besides explaining how it happened that one of the variants “attracted” the winning properties (and “won”), we will also describe a “vicious” circle of a double purification of science and politics and show how it contributes to the fragility of both democracy and expertise.

Vystoupení na 7. pracovní konferenci Biografu, Borek u Suchomast, 11.-13. června 2004

Vystoupení na národním semináři českého Pub-Acc týmu k tématu Environmentální spory v technické demokracii, FSV UK v Praze; 24. března 2004

Přednáška v rámci pondělních seminářů CTS (17:30 h, seminární místnost, Husova 4, Praha 1)