Turning Nano Green: The Hybrid Imagination in Action Andrew Jamison

An Underlying Contradiction: Hubris... hubris: ”impious disregard of the limits governing human action in an orderly universe. It is the sin to which the great and gifted are most susceptible, and in Greek tragedy it is usually the hero's tragic flaw.” (Encyclopedia Britannica online)

...versus Hybrids hybrids: ”offspring of parents that differ in genetically determined traits” or, more colorfully: ”By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism...” (Donna Haraway, ”A manifesto for cyborgs” 1986)

A Brief History of Technology mechanization capitalism imperialism technoscience romanticism cooperation socialism populism anticolonialism fascism environmentalism feminism Cultural and Social Movements (or where hybrids come from) Long Waves of Technological Change (or where hubris comes from)

The First Wave ”the industrial revolution” (ca ) Iron, textile machines, and steam engines Technologies of mechanization The factory as an organizational innovation Social and cultural movements: ”machine-storming” and cooperation romantic art and literature, e.g. Frankenstein

The Industrial Revolution

The hybrid imagination: Samuel Morse and the telegraph

The Second Wave ”the age of capital” (ca ) Railroads, telegraph, and steel Technologies of socialization The rise of the corporation (Carnegie, Krupp) Social and cultural movements: populism, communism and social-democracy science fiction and arts and crafts

The Industrial Society

The hybrid imagination: William Morris and industrial design ”nothing can be a work of art that is not useful” The Lesser Arts, 1878

The Third Wave ”the age of empire” (ca ) Electricity, automobiles, chemicals and airplanes Technologies of modernization Research becomes a business (Edison, DuPont) Social and cultural movements: anticolonialism and fascism modernism and human ecology

The Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk Henry Ford with his 10 millionth car

The hybrid Imagination: Lewis Mumford and human technology ”The whole industrial world – and instrumentalism is only its highest conscious expression - has taken values for granted...”

The Fourth Wave ”the new industrial state” (ca ) Atomic energy, genetics, and computers Technologies of scientification The rise of transnational corporations (IBM, Sony) Social and cultural movements: civil rights and ”ban the bomb” environmentalism, feminism and postmodernism

The Age of Technoscience

The hybrid imagination: Rachel Carson and environmental technology ”The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway om which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster.”

A New Wave? ”the age of information” (från ca 1980) Converging technologies (info-, bio-, cogno-, nano) Technologies of the virtual Global corporate empires (Microsoft, Nokia) Social and cultural movements: identity politics and ”open source” ecological design and global justice

The Age of Information

The hybrid imagination: Vandana Shiva and global ecology

Changing Regimes of Knowledge and Power Industrial Military Commercial “Little Science” “Big Science” “Technoscience” Before WWII 1940s-1970s 1980s- Type of Knowledge disciplinary multidisciplinary transdisciplinary Organiza- individuals or R&D departments ad hoc projects and tional form research groups and institutes networks Dominant values academic bureaucratic entrepreneurial

From Little Science to Big Science change in size and scale mission orientation external sponsorship new norm, or value system new role for the state (”science policy”)

From Big Science to Technoscience change in range and scope market orientation, global reach university-industry collaboration ”epistemic drift” (Elzinga) the state as strategist: “picking the winners”

Transdisciplinarity, or ”Mode 2” ”Knowledge which emerges from a particular context of application with its own distinct theoretical structures, research methods and modes of practice but which may not be locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map.” Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994)

Contextual Differences ”Mode 1””Mode 2” forms of structural programmatic funding (sub)national (trans)national main university transdisciplinary work sites departments centers framing disciplinary matrix specific context mechanism or paradigmof application

The Cultural Appropriation of Nanotechnology The dominant, or hegemonic strategy (mode 2): commercialization, entrepreneurship, transdisciplinarity The residual, or traditionalist strategy (mode 1): academicization, enlightenment, (multi)disciplinarity An emerging, or sustainable strategy (mode 3): hybridization, empowerment, interdisciplinarity

The Tendency to Hubris transcending human limitations ”converging technologies” (info, bio, cogno, nano) disregarding consequences and risks the rush to commercialize, and the lack of precaution drift of epistemic criteria problems with quality control and ”peer review”

The Forces of Habit(us) Nanotechnology primarily seen as providing new opportunities for scientists and engineers Organized and taught by reorganizing established scientific fields: a kind of multidisciplinary model Politics and the rest of society left largely outside of research and education: ”outsourcing” of nanoethics A continuing belief in separating science and politics

Fostering the Hybrid Imagination At the discursive, or macro level: sustainable nano connecting technological solutions to social and environmental problems At the institutional, or meso level: responsible nano creating contexts of communication across faculties and social domains At the personal, or micro level: nanocitizenship integrating contextual knowlege and public outreach into nanoscience and engineering education

Turning Nano Green As discourse: connecting the rhetoric of ”converging technologies” to the quest for sustainable development As organization: building bridges between nanoscientists/engineers and environmentalists As practice: conducting research and educational projects relating nanotechnology to social and environmental problems

For example: genetically modified, nanoengineered, ecologically designed,raspberry cactus- powered, solar-driven, CO2 emission-free, resource-efficient, high-speed trains genetically modified, nanoengineered, ecologically designed, raspberry cactus- powered, solar-driven, CO2 emission-free, resource-efficient, high-speed trains

that could also be a way to create some sustainable jobs and ”partnerships” between universities, companies, governmental agencies, and local communities - and just maybe get people to stop driving their cars so much!