Established Tables and Emergent Huddles: Exploring the Processes of Participation Associated With the Policy Changes to Opioid Pharmacotherapy Treatment in Australia in the Context of COVID-19

In this paper we document and analyze emergent participatory processes in drug policy, focusing on the relations between established modes of engagement and emergent participatory formats. We do this through analysis of a case example, attending to policy changes to opioid pharmacotherapy treatment in the context of COVID-19 in Australia. Semistructured interviews (n = 22) were undertaken between August 2020 and March 2021 with people closely involved in the recent policy changes and discussions surrounding opioid pharmacotherapy treatment in Australia. The analysis of the interview accounts followed work which has forged relational, co-productionist and materialist understandings of participation. Two figures of participation were encountered in the interview accounts: the tables of participation and the huddles of participation. The tables seemingly represented a standardized set of bureaucratic mechanisms for the inclusion of the “voices” of people who use drugs. The huddles emerged as a responsive and less coherent set of ad hoc participatory collectives in the context of rapid policy changes during COVID-19. Instead of viewing emergence as distinct from existing participatory formats, emergence was conceptualized ecologically in this article—that is in relation to established forms of participation. As the institutionally mandated tables served the basis for the emergent huddles of participation in this case study, it demonstrates that even the most foreclosed participatory structures can adapt and be responsive to evolving situations of need, perhaps also in ordinary times and not just in emergency conditions

Taking roles in interdisciplinary collaborations: Reflections on working in post-ELSI spaces in the UK synthetic biology community

Based on criticism of the “ethical, legal and social implications” (ELSI) paradigm, researchers in science and technology studies (STS) have begun to create and move into “post-ELSI” spaces. In this paper, we pool our experiences of working towards collaborative practices with colleagues in engineering and science disciplines in the f eld of synthetic biology. We identify a number of dif erent roles that we have taken, been assumed to take, or have had foisted upon us as we have sought to develop postELSI practices. We argue that the post-ELSI situation is characterised by the demands placed on STS researchers and other social scientists to f uctuate between roles as contexts shift in terms of power relations, af ective tenor, and across space and over time. This leads us to posit four orientations for post-ELSI collaborative practices that could help establish more fruitful negotiations around these roles

Five rules of thumb for post-ELSI interdisciplinary collaborations

In this paper we identify five rules of thumb for interdisciplinary collaboration across the natural and social sciences. We link these to efforts to move away from the ‘ethical, legal and social issues’ framework of interdisciplinarity and towards a post-ELSI collaborative space. It is in trying to open up such a space that we identify the need for: collaborative experimentation, taking risks, collaborative reflexivity, opening-up discussions of unshared goals and neighbourliness

Beyond Implications and Applications: the Story of ‘Safety by Design’

Using long-term anthropological observations at the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology in Houston, Texas, the article demonstrates in detail the creation of new objects, new venues and new modes of veridiction which have reoriented the disciplines of materials chemistry and nanotoxicology. Beginning with the confusion surrounding the meaning of ‘implications’ and ‘applications’ the article explores the creation of new venues (CBEN and its offshoot the International Council on Nanotechnology); it then demonstrates how the demands for a responsible, safe or ethical science were translated into new research and experiment in and through these venues. Finally it shows how ‘safety by design’ emerged as a way to go beyond implications and applications, even as it introduced a whole new array of controversies concerning its viability, validity and legitimacy

Nanotechnology, governance, and public deliberation: What role for the Social Sciences?

In this article we argue that nanotechnology represents an extraordinary opportunity to build in a robust role for the social sciences in a technology that remains at an early, and hence undetermined, stage of development. We examine policy dynamics in both the United States and United Kingdom aimed at both opening up, and closing down, the role of the social sciences in nanotechnologies. We then set out a prospective agenda for the social sciences and its potential in the future shaping of nanotechnology research and innovation processes. The emergent, undetermined nature of nanotechnologies calls for an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary model of social science research

What does 'acceptance' mean? Public reflections on the idea that addiction is a brain disease

Public responses to the dissemination of neuroscientific explanations of addiction and other mental disorders are an interesting sociocultural phenomenon. We investigated how 55 members of the Australian public deliberated on the idea that 'addiction is a brain disease'. Our findings point to the diverse ways in which the public understands and utilises this proposition. Interviewees readily accepted that drugs affect brain functioning but were ambivalent about whether to label addiction as a 'disease'. Contrary to the prediction of neuroscientific advocates and social science critics, acceptance of a neurobiological conception of addiction did not necessarily affect beliefs about addicted persons' responsibility for their addiction. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these findings. Theoretically, we examine the complexity surrounding how people adopt new knowledge and its role in reshaping ethical beliefs. We also discuss the implications of these findings for the ethics of communication of neuroscientific information to reduce stigma and enhance social support for the treatment of addicted individuals