Debashish Munshi

A map of the nanoworld: Sizing up the science, politics, and business of the infinitesimal

Abstract Mapping out the eight main nodes of nanotechnology discourse that have emerged in the past decade, we explore how various scientific, social, and ethical islands of discussion have developed, been recognized, and are being continually renegotiated. We do so by (1) identifying the ways in which scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, educators, and environmental groups draw boundaries on issues relating to nanotechnology; (2) describing concisely the perspectives from which these boundaries are drawn; and (3) exploring how boundaries on nanotechnology are marked and negotiated through contestations of power among various nodes of nanotechnology discourse.

Understanding ‘Race’ In/And Public Relations: Where Do We Start and Where Should We Go?

Our starting point for a broader discussion on ‘race’ in=and public relations (PR) is that, despite its virtual invisibility in the scholarly literature, race is firmly embedded in the context and practice of PR. Although scholars are slowly beginning to engage with race (e.g., Edwards, 2010b; Pompper, 2005; 2010; Waymer, 2010), PR scholarship has not yet paid sufficient attention to the ‘raced’ nature of the field. The dominant, functional perspectives of PR concentrate primarily on organizational goals, apparently oblivious to the impact that such goals have in relation to issues of race. On the other hand, critical approaches look at PR as a social and cultural phenomenon but these too, by and large, bypass race as an inherent part of the social and cultural domain.

Terms of empowerment: Gender, ecology, and ICTs for development

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is being held this year in Geneva, with a follow-up conference in Tunisia in 2005. Under the aegis of the United Nations, the summit addresses issues that are of immediate relevance to scholars in the field of communication, including the “new world order” created by global flows of information, the impact of information technology (IT) on the First World-Third World configuration, the information gap and its effects on practices of democratic governance and civil society formations, and numerous other related topics. Given this timely consideration of the role and place of IT in our lives, we have sought to identify the various ways in which gender is implicated in this brave new world, using the criticism and commentary section to highlight gender as a crucial variable in this debate. Too often discussions of such global topics are enveloped by wide-ranging and global policy concerns, where such a focus tends to ignore the real and material effects that policy has on the lives of women and men. Therefore, we want to highlight the ways in which gender is implicated in both information technology processes and in the access to and use of IT. In other words, through a focus on gender, we want to render visible the opportunities and challenges afforded by the development of the Information Society and explore the ways in which the rhetoric of empowerment masks the perpetuation of existing gender hierarchies. The topic generated a lot of interest and elucidated a broad array of experiences from across the globe. Whether assessing women’s access to technology or the ways in which information systems are mobilised to “develop” the South, a unifying theme is that of uneven development. Even those essays that underscore the beneficial aspects of IT include a cautionary note on the blind spots that emerge when the utopic promise of the technology is materialised. Together the essays outline the challenges feminist scholars face as they participate in discussions of democratic governance in Information Society, especially in the realm of universal and equitable access. Moulding the literature on the digital divide to account for women as subjects and objects of IT discourses, Leda Cooks and Kirsten Isgro ask questions about the empowerment rhetoric focused on information and communication technology (ICT), gender and development which emanates from a First World perspective. They suggest that self-conscious reflexivity about the relationship between capital and technology could provoke changes in First World practices and not simply shift the emphasis onto a more informed and inclusive ICT strategy for the developing world. Following this theoretical roadmap is a series of essays that chart the multifar-

Tense Borders: Culture, Identity, and Anxiety in New Zealand's Interweaving Discourses of Immigration and Genetic Modification

Immigration and genetic modification (GM) are two contentious sociocultural issues that have attracted considerable academic, political, and public attention in New Zealand. Although seemingly disparate, the discourses around the two issues share common anxieties about the protection and breaching of a range of boundaries, particularly national, cultural, political, and genetic ones. This article argues that the issues of immigration and GM epitomize the struggles over the politics of recognition and redistribution. On the one hand, these issues are steeped in the contested culture-driven politics of identity. On the other hand, they grapple with the economic realities of a globalized world and the ways in which economic wedges are driven between people on cultural lines. Studied together, the discourses of immigration and GM reveal how boundaries are created, maintained, and policed in an era of globalization and technoscience.

Sustainable citizenship for a technological world: negotiating deliberative dialectics

Incorporating the notion of sustainability is the biggest challenge for citizenship in a technological era. Existing conceptions of citizenship have not been able to grapple with compounded ecological, economic, cultural, and moral threats facing modern technology-infused societies. Nor has increased public participation, engagement, and dialogue resolved polarized positions on issues such as what constitutes quality of life or what is meant by the integrity of nature. This paper draws on the scholarship of both sustainability and citizenship to propose a framework of sustainable citizenship that seeks to emphasize shared values through a deliberated clash of ideas. Such a framework involves a negotiation of the dialectics of rights and responsibilities, state and non-state, public and private, human and non-human nature, universal and particular, and democracy and capitalism. The paper illustrates how sustainable citizenship can be applied to deal with contentious political and policy issues of new and emerging technologies.

COMMUNEcation: a rhizomatic tale of participatory technology, postcoloniality and professional community

This article explores the authors’ experiences in creating and participating with(in) a virtual conference organized as an experimental virtual network. These experiences demonstrate how physically co-located and virtual conferencing practices acting in tandem provide a greater opportunity for the inclusion of both diverse perspectives and participants in professional communities. Using insights from postcolonial theory, the article examines how the architecture of participation found in the technologies of Web 2.0 accentuates the potential for reclaiming some diversity of perspective and participation, facilitating a form of molecular community through conferencing practices. Finally, it provides theoretical and empirical insights and reflections on the social dynamics of conferencing in both online and offline spaces to demonstrate how online conferencing can expand the directions taken in pursuit of new collective knowledge.

A Mosaic of Visions, Daydreams, and Memories: Diverse Inlays of Organizing and Communicating From Around the Globe

This collaboratively multiauthored essay presents diverse tales of organizing and communicative practices in our global context. Authors from India, Nepal, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Nigeria present individual contributions that coalesce around three clear thematic concerns regarding issues of organizing and communicating: (1) silence and voice, (2) the limits and consequences of linguistic and theoretical translations, and (3) the communal considerations of research politics and participation. The essay concludes with communal reflections on how it is that in attempting to engage with diversity we begin to see remarkable similarities not only in expressing a desire to be heard but also in making a commitment to let others be heard, not only in breaking boundaries and building alliances but also in moving towards a collective, inclusive, and participative conceptualization of the myriad shapes of organizing and communicating that exist in the contemporary global context.

Cultural Dilemmas of Choice: Deconstructing Consumer Choice in Health Communication Between Maternity-Care Providers and Ethnic Chinese Mothers in New Zealand

This article critically analyses the discourse of consumer choice embedded in health communication interactions between maternity-care providers and migrant ethnic Chinese mothers in New Zealand. Findings indicate that Chinese mothers, as the customers of the New Zealand maternity and health care services, are encouraged to “fit in” with the Western discourse of choice. However, the mothers’ cultural predispositions for childbirth and communication have a significant impact on the ways in which they respond to and resist this discourse. Drawing on theoretical insights from postcolonialism and Third World feminism, this article contributes to the study of intercultural health communication by examining cultural dilemmas in the discourse of choice that is often taken for granted in Western health contexts. In doing so, it builds a platform for an inclusive maternity care and health environment in multicultural societies.

Nanotechnology, Society, and Environment

Nanotechnology talk is moving out of its comfort zone of scientific discourse. As new products go to market and national and international organizations roll out public engagement programs on nanotechnology to discuss environmental and health issues, various sectors of the public are beginning to discuss what all the fuss is about. Nongovernmental organizations have long since reacted; however, now the social sciences have begun to study the cultural phenomenon of nanotechnology, thus extending discourses and opening out nanotechnology to whole new social dimensions. We report here on these social dimensions and their new constructed imaginings, each of which is evident in the ways in which discourses around nanotechnology intersects with the economy, ecology, health, governance, and imagined futures. We conclude that there needs to be more than just an “environmental, legal, and social implications,” or “ELSI,” sideshow within nanotechnology. The collective public imaginings of nanotechnology include tangles of science and science fiction, local enterprise, and global transformation, all looking forward toward a sustainable future, while looking back on past debates about science and nature. Nanotechnology is already very much embedded in the social fabric of our life and times.

Pumpkins, kiwi fruits, and global hybrids: A comparative review of 21st century public relations scholarship in Australia/New Zealand and the United States

In attempting this review essay, we agreed that its commissioning editor’s terms of reference were at once impossible and irresistibly challenging: “a comparison of approaches to the study and practice of communication by scholars in the United States and Australia/New Zealand” preferably through “three to five books . . . published in 2003 and 2004” (Chesebro, March 26, 2004, personal email communication). From the outset we want to make clear that this essay is not, and cannot make any claim to be, a disinterested piece (in fact many of our disagreements with the work under review is that it presents itself as impartial, scientific, and uninfluenced by its origins). Although one of us taught in Australia for 10 years, and neither of us was born here, we are proud to be New Zealand-based academics. That background not only colors our point of view but, as the review goes on to argue, it also influences our intellectual allegiances and attitude to power, both within and outside the academy. Given the enormity and complexity of the task, we have postponed a broader communication analysis to a second review and restricted this initial review to the narrower field of public relations. For that field the following selection focuses on two types of books: those that serve as benchmarks (e.g., Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002; Heath, 2001) and those that are representative of main currents (e.g., Johnston & Zawawi, 2004; Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, Toth, & Van Leuven, 2004; Mickey, 2003; Tymson, Lazar, & Lazar, 2002).