Science and Development Studies and Science and Technology Studies

Development Studies (DS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) share a critical and reflective approach that aims at empowering citizens in the areas of knowledge and expertise.

But there are differences in their analytical traditions for exploring these issues. ‘While STS has relatively recently come to an interest in lay knowledge and experience-based expertise, DS by contrast draws on a much longer tradition of work examining local knowledge and practices and their conceptual and social underpinnings’ (Leach and Scoones 2005: 16). A linkage can be seen in the laboratory studies of Latour and Woolgar (1979) and Knorr-Cetina (1981), where the scientists’ work life is analysed from an anthropological perspective. In these studies it became clear that the nature of scientific knowledge was like other forms of knowledge, thus the differentiation between experts and non-experts loses its meaning (Leach and Scoones 2005). In this area, STS finds a lot in common with DS where social anthropological work emphasised social and local embeddedness of knowledge and beliefs (Leach and Scoones 2005). In DS, indigenous knowledge and local knowledge are often seen as ‘complementary partners’, and ‘rural people’s knowledge frames technical problems and agendas, and defines what relevant data to include or exclude’ (Leach and Scoones 2005: 19).

In STS, Actor Network Theories (ANT) claim that a divide between technical and social issues is not possible: constructing facts is a collective process according to Latour (1987). In this thesis I draw on the work of Akrich (1992, 1993) when looking at the technical approaches used in the case studies (Chapter 3). The introduction of technologies and approaches by the scientists

appear similar to Akrich's (1992) description: designers (in the case studies the scientists) define actors (the farmers) with specific attributes, for example rich/poor, adopters/non-adopters, male/female. These actors are to become the users of the introduced approach or technology, ‘like a film script, technical objects define a framework of action together with the actors and the space in which they are supposed to act’ (Akrich 1992: 208). The users should then act as a ‘good public’ (Felt and Fochler 2010) and assume the roles assigned to them in the script. However, there is always a difference ‘between the designer's projected user and the real user, between the world inscribed in the object and the world described by its displacement’ (Akrich 1992: 209).

More recently, in development ‘citizens are conceived as beneficiaries, customers and users of services provided by a development state or […] liberalized markets’ (Leach and Scoones 2005:

22-23). As in scientific decision-making, where citizens are often invited to become participants in public engagement processes (Felt and Fochler 2010), the public as development beneficiaries also get enrolled in ‘participation seen in terms of individuals choosing among an array of options and services, but not playing a major role in setting agenda of policy or technology development’ (Cornwall and Gaventa 2001 cited in Leach and Scoones 2005: 23).

Others argue that empowerment should be about more involvement of socially and economically marginalised people in decision-making over their own lives (Guijt and Shah 1998 cited in Cooke and Kothari 2001). It means a greater involvement of local people’s perspectives, knowledge, priorities and skills (Cooke and Kothari 2001). However, the reality is often different. Therefore in Chapter 3 I address the issues of enrolment and participation in the case studies in order to see how projects’ rhetoric about participation were applied in practice.

A useful concept to understand the way scientists often act and think in practice, and how they try to overcome the gap between them and the research clients, are Fujimura’s (1992: 205)

‘standardized packages’ (as discussed in 2.1.1). The scientists as representatives of the projects assume a powerful role in communicating the findings and conclusions to others. Facts are often constructed and turned into stories that turn into narratives. By black-boxing, for example, uncertainties and assumptions away from attention and scrutiny, scientists close controversies (Jasanoff and Wynne 1997; Keeley and Scoones 2003). Scientific knowledge is seen as universal, rational, modern and based on facts, and facts are made up of numbers in most cases. The spread of quantification has also contributed to a ‘reconfiguration of expert

knowledge’ (Porter 1994: 52). This quantification is not only a problem of science; it is a social and political problem as well:

In modern times, too, quantification has been as closely tied to administration as to science. Indeed, its use in science derives not only from a faith that the laws of nature are written in mathematical language but also from the rigors of scientific communication, the administration of knowledge and the need for trust. […] Scientists, social scientists, and engineers depend especially on such tools to justify their activities to governments and to the public at large. (Porter 1994: 36)

Moreover, the world around us is made up of standards and classifications (Bowker and Star 1999). Standards are ‘agreed-upon rules for the production of (textual or material) objects’

(Bowker and Star 1999: 13), and they extend over time places (Bowker and Star 1999).

Standards are key to knowledge production; however, their dimensions are idealised, as they

‘embody goals of practice and production that are never perfectly realized’ (Bowker and Star 1999: 15). The linkage between standards and classifications is not straightforward but vital for my research as it relates not only to standardisation and the use of classification systems by farmers and scientists, but also to the validation of success by standardised indicator systems common in scientific evaluation as well as donor-specific evaluation and monitoring systems.

Bowker and Star (1999: 15) maintain that

classifications may or may not become standardized. If they do not, they are ad hoc, limited to an individual or a local community, and/or of limited duration. At the same time every successful standard imposes a classification system, at the very least between good and bad ways of organizing actions or things.

Scientific knowledge still holds a privileged status, ‘as a consequence of the post-Enlightenment faith in science, the functional needs of administrative agencies, and the social authority conferred on professionals in industrial societies’ (Jasanoff and Wynne 1997: 51).

Alternative representations of tree and soil management that refer to ways of knowing rather than a simple documentation of local or indigenous knowledge are rare. Exceptionally, and regarding trees, several contributions in Rival (1998) explain how trees come to play a certain role in people’s lives, which symbols and beliefs they allocate to them and what makes them value or devalue trees and soil in certain ways.

In addressing ways of knowing in research projects and policy, it is also essential to understand how ‘success’ is produced or constructed, and who has control over the interpretation of events. Specifically in natural sciences, simplified procedures following a blueprint prescription are common. Such processes in ‘a particular logical progression’ are also described by Harrison and Watson (2012:939):

(1) Identification of problem (e.g. poor NRM) and aim (improved NRM); (2) find solution (technique); (3) implement (in partnership with someone with resources and capability).

The natural resources and techniques were the focus and the starting point. The local people with whom they worked on the ground were seen as component parts of a complex system. (Harrison and Watson 2012:939)

People, ideas, interests, events and objects are all correlated in a network that makes up the order of a successful project (Latour 2000 cited in Mosse 2005). Subordinate actors both reject and maintain policy models, depending on how it serves their interests (Scott 1990). Thus, policy ideas incite alliances and divisions within projects, farmers use them to make claims or to refrain from participation, and support or refusal to engage are framed based on how networks react to these ideas (Mosse 2005). This convergence of issues of enrolment and participation, co-production of science and policy, power and expertise and the use of framing and standardisation is central to the debate my research is addressing.

In light of the diversity of knowledge traditions around the world it is highly questionable whether ‘modern science should be seen as setting the epistemological standard’ (Turnbull 1997: 552). Turnbull differentiates the localist position as a contrasting position to this: he argues that all knowledge is value laden and that ‘modern technoscience is exploitative, hierarchical and antithetical to women and the south’ (Turnbull 1997: 552). Likewise Latour and Woolgar (1979) and others argue that all knowledge, even ‘science’ is local, but modern science is distinct for the reach and power of its actor-networks. In contrast to “modern sciences”, which attempt to be context-detached, upscalable to different parts of the world and universal but precise, local knowledge is ‘situated’, and its diversity is embedded in the locality, the actors and the ways of knowing and learning:

different people know different things in different places, and learn new things in different ways. These differences are reflected in and reinforce power and weakness. Scientific establishments and local elites (male, less poor, ‘progressive’) link together and monopolize some types of knowledge, while those who are weaker, dispersed and local are marginalized. (Chambers 1994: xiv-xv)

Haraway (1988) and other feminist authors also promote a more emancipated approach to scientific epistemologies. She specifically emphasises that all knowledge is ‘situated’, she argues ‘for politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situation, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims‘

(Haraway 1988:589). Thus, my research aligns with those who recognise ‘differences between knowledge systems but are concerned to find ways in which they can coexist’ (Turnbull 1997).

These differences will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4. That chapter also shows the

multiplicity of roles and identities of participating actors in the research projects and that these deeply influence their ways of knowing and knowledges. It shows that knowing is inseparable from cultural, economic and political processes.

This section provided an overview of the theoretical framework I am applying in my research.

It has shown how social worlds can be used as a lens to understand intersections between farmers and scientists, and how this influences their cooperation in research projects. It has also linked social worlds to issues of power where different actors demarcate their fields of expertise and knowledges with certain symbols, languages and metaphors to include some voices, but exclude many others simultaneously. Different knowledges emerge based on different ways of knowing, but authority and power is not ascribed to all of them. Ways of knowing are the ways by which human beings can acquire knowledge (Truncellito 2007). Some may be more influenced by sense perception, others by emotion or reason. Different ways of knowing are not better or worse, more effective, or less effective, on the contrary different ways of knowing broaden rather than narrow what kind of knowledges human-beings can acquire, and how they can do so. But the plurality of different ways of knowing is often unrecognised and in many parts of the world, and particularly among many scientists, reason is considered superior to all other ways of knowing. This also implies that to gain and produce knowledge one must have a specific type of training or a status as ‘expert’, rather than being a

‘mere citizen’:

The tacit division of labour between an expert who produces knowledge and a citizen who consumes it has to be rendered less asymmetrical by understanding the citizen as a person of knowledge. The worker, the peasant and the craftsman are all citizens of knowledge about science. This understanding cannot be devalued as ‘ethnoscience’ while expert understanding is ‘philosophy of science’. Such a hierarchy or devaluation creates the possibility of the museumization or appropriation of these other knowledges. Strangely, even at a time when science is appropriating and patenting peasant knowledges, there is no epistemic acknowledgement of their status. Science begins a form of strip mining, where knowledge about local drugs, therapeutics, soils and seeds is abstracted without considering the philosophies they are embedded in. (Visvanathan 2005:91)

In my research I combine the concepts of social worlds and actor-oriented approaches with a critical look at how narratives, framings and power enable some ways of knowing while obscuring or marginalising others. Further, I draw on approaches from STS to explain how scientists are designing the scripts for research projects, and how users are enrolled to participate. I argue that standardised packages play a central role in how scientists define expertise and power, and how the research is represented to others.

The conceptual framework explained above provided a solid basis for developing an appropriate methodology for my research. Step by step the methodology was adapted to the conceptual framework and then tested in the field. My research required repeated interaction and longer periods of research with farmers and scientists, as well as policy-makers and NGO representatives. The next section of this chapter explains in more detail how this methodology was developed and implemented.