This thesis starts with what the House of Lords Third Report (2000) has identified as a
“crisis of trust” between science and society. It explores ways of addressing this crisis by
examining stem cell researchers’ discourses about their work and public engagement, and
suggests ways of improving scientists’ engagement with publics.
My journey from natural to social sciences started with an in-depth critical analysis of
constructive (or critical) perspectives on public understanding of science (e.g. Irwin and
Wynne). This highlighted the importance of investigating scientific institutions and
scientists, and their embedded assumptions about publics, engagement and science. My
research expands upon the limited empirical research on this topic and draws upon data from
interviews and discussions with 54 stem cell researchers (of different levels of seniority and
field of research, in Australia and the UK). Using informants’ discourse as a “topic” and a
“resource” (Gilbert and Mulkay), the thesis explores in detail the strategic and socially
contingent definitions and boundaries (Gieryn) in stem cell research (SCR).
Analysis of the empirical material develops four main themes. Firstly, the language and
conceptual fluidity of SCR is emphasised and shown to enable scientists to conduct
“boundary-work” in a variety of ways. Secondly, discourses and performances of
(un)certainty are examined to highlight a diversity of socially contingent identities SCR
professionals can draw upon. This examination draws on MacKenzie’s “certainty trough”
but also improves it by problematising the concept of “distance from knowledge
production”. Thirdly, scientists’ expressions of trust and ambivalence are analysed as
interactions with particular “expert systems” such as processes of informed consent,
commercialisation or legislation in conditions of increased globalisation. By highlighting
hermeneutic aspects of trust, this analysis is sharpened and shows that there are elements of
“counter-modernity” as well as “reflexive modernisation” in SCR. It is argued that, to further
explore the reflexive potential of stem cell professionals’ critiques of their work, these need
to be further discussed in public. The forth and final theme focuses more specifically on
engagement. Stem cell researchers’ accounts are shown to construct and perform publics,
scientists and engagement – and thus “scientific citizenship” – in a variety of ways. This
variety can be made sense of by reflecting on conceptions of expertise, democracy, and
power. This enables the development of six “ideal-types” of engagement that can be used
heuristically to study performances of citizenship.
The thesis concludes by discussing its main contributions to knowledge. It highlights how
social scientists can encourage greater “interpretative reflexivity” (Lynch) on the part of
scientists; this can, in turn, lead to improved science-public relations
