XXI SEMINANOSOMA

Anais do XXI Seminário Internacional Nanotecnologias, Sociedade e Meio Ambiente desafios jurídicos éticos e sociais para a “grande transição sustentável” (XXI SEMINANOSOMA) 324 g) Socially robust knowledge: Since knowledge accreditation and validation is no longer hegemonized by the scientific field, it is more difficult to install principles of authority over scientific knowledge. Non-experts possess a higher level of qualification and competences that allow them to be more reflexive and question scientific criteria. In this scenario, controversies become widespread and the robustness of knowledge no longer depends on factors endogenous to science, but must generate socially robust knowledge – a concept that highlights the relational aspects in scientific knowledge production. Robustness is defined by the heterogeneity of elements and agents according to the application context and is the goal of “science in socie- ty” (Gibbons 2000: 161). h) A new space for exchange: the agora. Gibbons, Nowotny and Scott call the agora the space for the exchange and produc- tion of consensus where knowledge production dynamics take place: problem definition, controversies, the search for solutions, etc. Gibbons does not associate any institutionalism with the con- cept of the agora since, in his definitions, this space is neither stateowned, nor mercantile, nor necessarily public or private:10 [o]ne outcome of all these changes is that the sites at which problems are formulated and negotiated have moved from their previous institutional locations in government, industry and universities into the “agora” – the public space in which both “science meets the public”, and the public “speaks back” to science. This is a space in which the media is increasingly active, and in which the new communication technologies play a prominent role. It is also the domain in which contextualization occurs. Neither state nor market, neither exclusively private nor exclusively public, the agora is where today’s societal and scientific problems are framed and defined, and their ‘solutions’ are negotiated. (Gibbons 1999: 4) 10 Nowotny and associates clearly express the non-institutionalised nature of this entity when they refer to it as a pluralistic and democratic “environement” that occurs insofar as “sci- ence and society are invading and being invaded by each other”, (Nowotny et al. 2001). Authors such as Frederiksen et al. (2003) clearly suggest this interpretation by pointing to the relational rather than institutionalised nature of this entity: [h]owever, the agora does not only consist of or is not identical to the institutions – the concept of the agora stresses the importance of the relationships, the processes and the dialogues taking place between the many different actors: a phenomenon that the authors call “contextualization” (Frederiksen et al. 2003: 6).

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