Public Engagement and the Constriction of Reflexive Practice

• In Event: Reflecting on Reflexivity in Practice: Responsible Innovation, Engagement, and Governance - I

Abstract

What responsible research and innovation means has figured centrally around the idea of reflexivity, particularly with regards to public engagement with emerging science and technology. As such, it is often difficult to pin down precisely what reflexivity entails and how to achieve it in a public engagement context without interrogation of the aims and modes of public engagement itself. This paper aims to step back from reflexive and public engagement practices themselves and ask questions of the framings of public engagement with science—with particular attention to questions of whom and for what purposes is public engagement is invoked.

By looking closely at the discussions around human genome editing and public engagement, this paper argues that those discussions frame public engagement as a means to resolve societal controversy and promote publicly permissible paths forward for gene editing technology rather than as a means of opening up participation in decision making. And under those framings of public engagement, reflexivity is constricted to be a practice of minimal disruption to pursuits of public consensus and the non-rejection and eventual adoption of those technologies, rather than the abstention from them. Together, this suggests that how we characterize public engagement itself is highly consequential for how we functionally envision reflexivity and responsible research and innovation in practice and invites renewed scrutinization of our notions of the democratic aspirations and practices of public engagement.

Author

• Christian H. Ross, Arizona State University