Heterogeneity, Humility and Hegemony: Reflections on Engineering Life

Abstract

Engineering Life is a five-year, funded project to investigate synthetic biology's attempts to engineer the living world and to examine the ways in which social scientists have been mobilized as part of this endeavor. As we near the end of this project, we use this panel session to reflect on some key themes that have emerged from our study of synthetic biology and its governance. This session will start with short provocations around the themes of 'heterogeneity, humility and hegemony' and then open up to extended audience discussion.

Across the provocations, we will address tensions encountered in the field between hegemonic framings of engineering and efforts to create spaces for a more heterogeneous approach to engineering life. We discuss specific experiments in interdisciplinary collaboration and research policy, and highlight instances of humility in the field, including recognition of the uncertainties involved in engineering living systems and of the importance of social context. Across these examples, however, we note the continual pressures to enforce more hegemonic ideals of engineering, to avoid heterogeneity by separating the social from the technical, and to assert the dominance of the latter.

During the discussion, we aim to explore these dynamics further and to reflect on how they might apply to other areas of science and engineering. We also ask about the possible contributions of STS in sustaining and expanding spaces for heterogeneity and humility in fields such as synthetic biology, and reflect on productive strategies for countering hegemonic framings.

Discussant

• Gary Downey, Virginia Tech

Individual Presentations

• Testing Rationality in Synthetic Biology - Pablo Schyfter, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, The University of Edinburgh

• Humility and Synthetic Biology - Jane Calvert, Edinburgh University

• Grand Challenges for Heterogeneous Engineering - Emma Frow, Arizona State University

• Buying into the Linear Model? Hypocrisy and Heterogeneity in the Governance of Synthetic Biology - Robert David Jonathan Smith, University of Edinburgh; Thokozani Kamwendo, University of Edinburgh

• Whose Future? The Perils of Deliberative Democracy and Synthetic Biology - Deborah Scott, University of Edinburgh

Session Organizer

• Emma Frow, Arizona State University