Citizenship, Science and Risk: Conceptualising Relationships across Issues and Settings

Abstract

Shifting relationships between science and society, and responses to science-related risk and uncertainty, are central to practices of citizenship and their expression and to questions around the subject of 'participation'. This article reports on the preliminary phase and inception workshop of a Development Research Centre (DRC) project to explore the dynamics of citizenship, science and risk across a range of issues and settings. It reflects on the potential for cross-learning between analytical traditions that have focused respectively on 'northern' and 'southern' settings, and on questions of participation in scientific and technological processes, and the notions of citizenship that they imply. It then considers how the internationalisation of science and governance are shaping both the generation and regulation of technology and risks, and patterns of engagement between citizens and 'experts'. It outlines a notion of 'knowledge rights' in scientific decision-making which could in turn help create and consolidate other forms of citizenship rights