Travelling Risk. The Governance of Nanotechnology Risk in India and South Africa

• In Event: How Do Governance Mechanisms for Science and Technology Travel Across Borders? 2

Abstract

This paper investigates how governance mechanisms for science and technology travel by looking at the case of risk governance of nanotechnology in India and South Africa. Risks to human health and the environment are widely seen as a valid object of concern and many governance mechanisms have been developed to address risks. However, not everywhere around the world does risk occupy a central spot on the public agenda. For instance in India and South Africa, key governance mechanisms for risk are either absent or rather young, and technologies like asbestos and nuclear materials have not always been captured and governed in terms of risk.

In the case of nanotechnology, however, the potential risks of the technology are currently identified as an important issue for governance by governments in both India and South Africa. This raises the question how risk governance mechanisms emerge in India and South Africa – how risk governance mechanisms ‘travel’ from one place to another.

I will answer this question by drawing upon extensive fieldwork in India and South Africa. In India and South Africa risk governance mechanisms emerged only several years after nanotechnology concerns were articulated in terms of risk in other countries around the world, most notable in Europe and North America, thus allowing a clearer view on the way such discourses travel. I will argue that the way risk is understood and dealt with changes as risk discourses travel around the world, giving many different faces to the world risk society.

Author

• Koen Beumer