The emergence of microbiological inputs and the challenging laboratorisation of agriculture: lessons from Brazil and Mexico

In this article, we analyse the tensions associated with the emergence of microorganism-based agricultural inputs in two Latin American countries, Brazil and Mexico. More specifically, we examine the ways in which these technologies, which are based on the use of living organisms, leave public microbiology research laboratories and are further developed by manufacturers or farmers. To this end, we draw on the concept of the 'laboratorisation' of society, part of the actor-network theory. We show that the emergence of these technologies is currently facing a number of challenges, due to the risks associated with their biological nature and the difficulty involved in establishing production processes as reliable as those used in reference laboratories. Whether produced by companies or on farms, the quality and safety of the practices and of these products are the subject of debate, as well as the focus of scientific, economic and political scrutiny. These microbiological inputs are evidence for the transformation of the relationship between science, industry, users and politics that is taking place around the emergence of alternatives to synthetic chemical inputs in agriculture, and more broadly, about the use of microbiological resources in agriculture

Biofactories: A new model for production and access to agricultural inputs in Latin America

The production and access to alternatives to chemical agricultural inputs are key issues today. In Latin America, solutions to these challenges (see Perspective 55, May 2021) are becoming available thanks to the rise of biological inputs – including biofertilizers, biocontrol agents and biostimulants – resulting from many years of public investment in research and development, and a significant industrial drive in developing technologies based on micro-organisms, macro-organisms or plant extracts. However, the sector is taking a different route from the traditional agri-supply channels: NGOs, farmer networks, public policies and even some private stakeholders are encouraging the production of bio- inputs in bio-factories, directly on farms or in community facilities in rural areas. While these biofactories open up new prospects, they also face major challenges

Les incertitudes scientifiques et techniques constituent-elles une source possible de renouvellement de la vie démocratique ?

http://www.csi.mines-paristech.fr/Items/WorkingPapers/Download/DLWP.php?wp=WP_CSI_028.pdfTexte de la conférence introductive au Congrès de l'AISFL organisé à Rabat en juillet 2012 sur le thème : Penser l'incertain

"We produce under this sky": making organic wine in a material world

This thesis explores the role of living and non-living materials as active agents in the processes of making and marketising organic wines in Northern Italy. It is concerned with the ways in which the tension between human intentionality and material agency is managed and worked with in this high-risk and ethically charged context. By applying theoretical insights of actor-network and post-humanist theories to the field of agri-food production, this thesis proposes novel ways of understanding markets, ethics, and skill in the context of organic wine, and of agri-food more generally. The thesis traces and analyses the effects of materials key to the production and marketisation of organic wines: vines, yeast, and sulphur dioxide. A multi-sited, participant observation ethnography approach is used to follow these materials, and the practices in which they are implicated, at a number of wineries in Northern Italy. Two dominant modes of ordering (Law 1994) of organic winemaking practices and discourses are identified: pacification, and making spaces for nature. It is shown that the constant tension between these two modes of ordering expresses the ongoing negotiation of acceptable levels of indeterminacy (and so the acceptable limits of ‘naturalness’) in organic wine production and sales. This thesis makes a significant contribution to current debates in post-humanist and agri-food literature. It extends the existing empirical focus of post-humanist research to spaces of high-risk human-nonhuman interactions. It proposes a move beyond conceptualising agri-food ‘natures’ as economically or ethically passive, and towards relational understandings of both markets and ethics of agri-foods. It demonstrates that the times and spaces of agri-food production, and those of agri-food markets and ethics, are linked through the materialities of practice and product. This thesis thus calls for a materialist politics approach to agri-food production

Urban rooms and the expanded ecology of urban living labs

Urban living labs (ULLs) deal with complex urban futures by acting as translators between research and urban co-production processes. The ‘urban room’ (UR) typology is a space for diverse actors and citizens to co-create city futures. This paper examines how the situated, hybrid and participatory methods of the URs compare with those of ULLs. This reveals similarities and differences in building resilience. URs are positioned as place-based infrastructures and active sites of multiplicity, where diverse communities can transform the city, decentring experts in urban transformations. A UR case study of collaborative civic regeneration in Sheffield, UK, is explored through a situated and diffractive analysis. Effective new methods are found to be speculative openness, generative witnessing and inhabiting detachments. These methods are complementary to ULLs and enlist a multiplicity of voices engaged in the co-production of urban knowledge. An expanded ecology of URs and ULLs would enrich ‘dialogical spaces’ within cities towards achieving just adaptation and resilience

Performative policy studies: realizing "transition management"

The paper analyses the relations between policy studies and public policy. It traces how they are constitutively entangled. Conceptually, this builds on a notion of performativity that has been developed in science studies. The performativity of policy studies is explored in a case study of the innovation journey of “transition management” as a model for governing sociotechnical change. The paper shows how practices of knowledge production and policy-making take shape in interaction with the model and how a specialized research field coevolves with political alliances and policy programs. They interact in the process of realizing transition management, both by establishing the model as collective knowledge and by materially enacting it. In this interweaving with public policy, policy studies contribute to creating the reality that they describe. The conclusions discuss “realizing” as a mode of governance.BMBF, 01UU0906, Innovation in Governanc

A review of contemporary work on the ethics of ambient assisted living technologies for people with dementia

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases worldwide over coming decades. However, the development, introduction and use of AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This paper is a systematic literature review of the on-going scholarly debate about these issues. More specifically, we look at the ethical issues involved in research and development (R&D), clinical experimentation, and clinical application of AAL technologies for people with dementia and related stakeholders. In the discussion we focus on: 1) the value of the goals of AAL technologies, 2) the special vulnerability of persons with dementia in their private homes, 3) the complex question of informed consent for the usage of AAL technologies

Making the Sea Knowable: Ocean Literacies From a Sea‐Centred Perspective

In this article, I focus on the wave buoy and how it expands the concept of ocean literacy. The Directional Waverider buoy, manufactured by Datawell, is used worldwide to measure waves to produce knowledge about oceans in the context of rising sea levels and storm surges. My ethnographic fieldwork took place on the German North Sea coast, where these ocean developments affect the low‐lying coastline. Using buoys along the coast is one way of making the sea knowable through datafication and climate modelling. To understand how the buoy pushes the limits of the concept of ocean literacy and what this means for human–ocean relations, I focus on the knowledge production processes of scientists working with the buoy and its data, and how the established infrastructure territorialises the North Sea. I subsequently show how the wave buoy rides the waves and how this relates to my embodied knowledge of the sea, drawing on Ingersoll’s concept of “seascape epistemology.” I argue that these knowledge practices are based on a sea‐centred perspective, and that in order to remain stable, this infrastructure needs to be as supple as the sea. I conclude by suggesting that it is important to understand ocean literacy as a plural concept, as ocean literacies, as demonstrated by these plural knowledges