David Tyfield

Theorizing the Bioeconomy Biovalue, Biocapital, Bioeconomics or . . . What?

In the policy discourses of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC), modern biotechnology and the life sciences are represented as an emerging “bioeconomy” in which the latent value underpinning biological materials and products offers the opportunity for sustainable economic growth. This articulation of modern biotechnology and economic development is an emerging scholarly field producing numerous “bio-concepts.” Over the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to theorize this relationship between biotechnologies and their capitalization. This article highlights some of the underlying ambiguities in these conceptualizations, especially in the fetishization of everything “bio.” We offer an alternative view of the bioeconomy by rethinking the theoretical importance of several key economic and financial processes.

Responsible innovation across borders: tensions, paradoxes and possibilities

In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from Sao Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on ‘Responsible Innovation and the Governance of Socially Controversial Technologies’. In this Perspective we describe key reflections and observations from the workshop discussions, paying particular attention to the discourse of responsible innovation from a cross-cultural perspective. We describe a number of important tensions, paradoxes and opportunities that emerged over the three days of the workshop.

Putting the Power in 'Socio-Technical Regimes' - E-Mobility Transition in China as Political Process

Abstract A mobility low-carbon transition is a key issue both socially and for mobilities research. The multi-level perspective (MLP) is justifiably a leading approach in such research, with important connections to high-profile socio-technical systemic analyses within the mobilities paradigm. The paper explores the key contributions that a Foucauldian-inspired cultural political economy offers, going beyond central problems with the MLP, specifically regarding: a productive concept of power that affords analysis of the qualitatively novel and dynamic process of transition; and the incorporation of the exogenous ‘landscape’ into the analysis. This move thus resonates with growing calls for attention to power dynamics in mobilities research and a ‘structural’ turn. In making this case, we deploy the key case study of contemporary efforts towards mobility transition in China. This not only sets out more starkly the importance of MLP’s gaps but also provides an empirical case to illustrate, albeit in the form of informed speculation, possible routes to low-carbon urban mobility transition and the inseparability from broader qualitative power transitions at multiple scales, including the global.

‘King Coal is Dead! Long Live the King!’: The Paradoxes of Coal's Resurgence in the Emergence of Global Low-Carbon Societies

Much discourse on low-carbon transition envisages progressive social change towards environmentally sustainable and more equitable societies. Yet much of this literature pays inadequate attention to the key question of (productive, relational) power. How do energy infrastructures and socio-technical systems interact with, construct, enable and constrain political regimes, and vice versa? Conceiving low-carbon energy transitions through a power lens, the paper explores a case study of huge, but overlooked, significance: the paradox of the ‘phenomenal’ resurgence of coal in an era of low-carbon innovation. Through exposition of the strong connections between coal-based socio-technical systems and a political regime of classical liberalism, illustrated in two eras, we trace an emerging constellation of energy and political regimes connecting ‘clean coal’ with a ‘liberalism 2.0’ centred on a rising China. This affords a critique of the low-carbon society emergent from these developments – a society more reminiscent of coals previous Dickensian heyday than the progressive visions of much ‘low-carbon transition’ literature.

Introduction to Special Issue on ‘Mobilities and Foucault’

The past few years have witnessed an increased interest in the work of Michel Foucault among mobilities researchers. For instance, taking this journal as the key representative of research trends in the field, 2013 saw the publication of eight articles referring to Foucault, as against 10 in the previous four years combined. Moreover, after being sorted by ‘relevance’ on the journal’s website, six of the top 20 articles discussing Foucault appeared in 2013. Based on the number of downloads and citation scores, at least two of these are being read or at least looked at widely (Bærenholdt 2013; Salter 2013). The increasing interest in exploring questions of mobility from a Foucauldian perspective also became evident during the organisation of a workshop on ‘Mobilities and Foucault’ at the University of Lucerne in January 2013. It is from that workshop that this Special Issue hails. Interaction between the Foucauldian and mobilities traditions may appear, prima facie, unlikely, at least on a particular (and common) reading of both ‘Foucault’ and ‘mobilities’ that stresses the focus of the former on institutions of spatial immobility (the lunatic asylum, prison) as against the latter’s supposed fascination with movement, fluidity and flux. Indeed, turning to seminal statements of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ we see no mention of Foucault (e.g. Featherstone, Thrift, and Urry 2004; Urry 2004; Sheller and Urry 2006; Cresswell 2010). Similarly, mobility has not been a major point of discussion amongst scholars of Foucault, even though Foucault’s work has proven fruitful for analysing (urban) space, spatial practices and territoriality (e.g. Philo 1992; Crampton and Elden 2007; Elden 2009). Yet both ‘Foucault’ and ‘mobilities’ refer to diverse and wide-ranging literatures that present multiple possible points of intersection. As discussed further below, Foucault’s writings covered many themes, introduced and redefined a wide range of

Enabling TRIPs : The pharma-biotech-university patent coalition.

ABSTRACT The dominant player behind the Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPs) agreement, as regards patents, was a handful of American pharmaceutical transnational corporations (‘big pharma’). Given that TRIPs was exceptionally controversial, how was US big pharma uniquely enabled to command the entire trade diplomatic machinery of the US and, through that, enact global law in its favour? This paper explores one crucial factor in the enacting of TRIPs, namely the prior pursuit of domestic US patent reform, from which a highly integrated and powerful single-issue political coalition between US big pharma, the new biotechnology sector and academic life science departments was formed. This created the political context in the US in which patent issues, particularly those affecting the pharmaceuticals industry, came to be considered matters of state. But explaining both the success of this patent coalition and the subsequent success of the US-led international demands for TRIPs in turn demands appeal to analysis of the structure of the global economy and its transformation to one of neoliberal financialisation, from a watershed of 1980. The paper explores how the critical histories of each of the three sectors of the patent coalition are illuminated by analysis in the context of this structural change and the underlying connections between apparently disparate issues it reveals.

Low‐carbon disruptive innovation in China

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore arguments for the importance of disruptive innovation to Chinas low‐carbon transition, while such innovation is generally overlooked and/or belittled.Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on the multi‐level perspective (MLP) of systems transitions being developed by interdisciplinary scholars regarding low‐carbon innovation to explore the multiple opportunities regarding disruptive innovation in the case of China.Findings – This exploration details that at the levels of business strategy, national economic development and governance of a transition to ecological sustainability, there is a strong prima facie case that disruptive innovation offers singular opportunities in China regarding low‐carbon innovation, while a focus on hi‐tech innovation alone is unlikely to effect the radical systems transition needed.Practical implications – Acknowledging and incorporating such opportunities is thus to be encouraged, both in China and elsewhere, including in the for...

Green Keynesianism: Bringing the Entrepreneurial State Back in(to Question)?

Abstract Since the global financial crisis of 2007/8, proliferating calls for a Keynesian Green New Deal have cast the publicly (and environmentally) minded state as a necessary driver of technological innovation and social transformation, while, vice versa, innovation has moved to political centre-stage. The history and genesis of this particular Green Keynesian paradigm illustrate that some of its most high-profile proponents selectively and problematically frame twentieth-century Keynesianism and the ‘public good’. It is important to examine critically the calls for an ‘entrepreneurial state’ in which Green Keynesian ideas are mobilized in support of an agenda for continued and accelerated development of commercially focused, privately developed green technologies. The entrepreneurial state represents a neoliberal re-appropriation of Green Keynesianism, where dominant financial actors (in Silicon Valley, as opposed to on Wall Street) are tapped as the visionaries who can and should set our collective innovation agenda. Although there is a need for large-scale, coordinated techno-social efforts to address climate change, supporting ‘green’ innovation cannot simply be framed as maximizing ‘innovation’ while taking the ‘state’ for granted. Instead, it must entail a careful assessment of the specific trajectories of innovation being enabled and the underlying socio-natures that they maintain and promote. Science and technology studies (STS)-informed analysis allows, and compels, asking how socio-technological innovation and their constitutive power relations are crucially interrelated, making the reshaping of the state—still the primary institution and system of social relations of collective governance—a core but neglected political, technological and ecological project of our time, with a key role for STS.

The importance of the ‘international collaboration dividend’: the case of China

The international standing of Chinese science has improved at an extraordinary rate in the last two decades, prompting fears among some commentators in the global North. Against such positions, this paper argues: first, that the continuing limitations of Chinese science show it is most unlikely to dominate global science imminently; and second, that the rise of Chinese science is, in any case, a trend that is greatly to be welcomed, with the potential to benefit everybody. In particular, regarding the simple advance of science and the tackling of unprecedented global problems, both Chinese science per se and international collaboration with Chinese researchers are crucial. Furthermore, such collaboration has demonstrable mutual benefits, yielding an ‘international collaboration dividend’ of increased impact and quality of research for all parties. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Mobility intersections: social research, social futures

Abstract This special issue seeks to deepen conversations at the intersections between mobilities research and a number of adjacent fields. Contributions explore how mobilities research has emerged and travelled along with a range of approaches concerned with the lived production of socio-material orders, such as science and technology studies, non-representational and feminist theory, critical and speculative design and cosmopolitanism, to name but a few, while also intersecting with many applied fields, such as transport planning and policy, disability studies, or disaster response. The field of mobilities research has grown by connecting different epistemological frames, and offering new post-disciplinary approaches to complex interconnected phenomena. In pausing to reflect on these mobility intersections, we suggest that mobilities research is integral to a broader project of transforming the social sciences that is currently underway.