Scenario Planning and Nanotechnological Futures

Scenario planning may assist us in harnessing the benefits of nanotechnology and managing the associated risks for the good of the society. Scenario planning is a way to describe the present state of the world and develop several hypotheses about the future of the world, thereby enabling discussions about how the world ought to be. Scenario planning thus is not only a tool for learning and foresight, but also for leadership. Informed decision-making by experts and political leaders becomes possible, while simultaneously allaying public's perception of the risks of new and emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. Two scenarios of the societal impact of nanotechnology are the mixed-signals scenario and the confluence scenario. Technoscientists have major roles to play in both scenarios

Prática de pesquisa e "sociologia pública": uma discussão em torno de cruzamentos possíveis e outros nem tanto Research practice and "public sociology": a discussion on possible and not-so-possible intersections

Este artigo insere-se como uma reação direta ao chamado For Public Sociology (2005), do sociólogo Michael Burawoy. Discute as implicações daquele texto-manifesto em termos de uma prática de pesquisa que incorpora o componente dialógico da proposta e procura mostrar as suas limitações quando faz concessões quer à sociologia profissional, quer a policy sociology. Tais limitações são postas à luz tendo por base alguns exemplos extraídos de trabalho de campo próprio, em que o elemento reflexivo da pesquisa impõe uma problematização em termos de relações de poder entrevistador-entrevistado. Recorre-se à abordagem tourainiana da sociologia da ação e da metodologia da intervenção sociológica para mostrar que a tradição da disciplina já enfrentou o mesmo gênero de questões anteriormente. Por fim, o artigo conclui pela pertinência da "sociologia pública" desde que levando em conta as incompatibilidades metodológicas com os outros "tipos" de sociologia caracterizados pelo autor no texto mencionado.<br>This article is a direct reaction to Michael Burawoy's For Public Sociology (2005). It discusses the implications of that manifest in terms of a research practice that assimilates the dialogical component of the proposal and intends to present its limitations, which result from concessions both to professional sociology and policy sociology. These limitations are exposed based on some examples from fieldwork, in which the reflexive element of the research requires a problematization of the power relations between the interviewer and the interviewee. The article refers to Touraine's sociology of action and the methodology of sociological intervention to demonstrate that the tradition of the discipline has faced issues of that kind before. In the end, the article concludes for the relevance of "public sociology", but it takes into consideration the methodological incompatibilities with other "types" of sociology, characterized by the author in the above-mentioned text