Marko Monteiro

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.

Reconfiguring Evidence: Interacting with Digital Objects in Scientific Practice

This paper analyzes how scientists working in a multidisciplinary team produce scientific evidence through building and manipulating scientific visualizations. The research is based on ethnographic observations of scientists’ weekly work meetings and the observation of videotapes of these meetings. The scientists observed work with advanced imaging technologies to produce a 4D computer model of heat transfer in human prostate tissues. The idea of ‘digital objects’ is proposed in order to conceptually locate their ‘materiality’, observed in the practices of producing evidence through the handling of three-dimensional renderings of data. The manipulation of digital objects seeks to establish meaningful differences between parameters of interest, both when building and when analyzing them. These digital objects are dealt with as part of the empirical evidence used in the course of practices of visualizing and modeling natural phenomena. This process, which can be contextualized historically in terms of the development of imaging technologies, becomes crucial in understanding what counts as empirical evidence in current scientific work.

Beyond the merely visual: Interacting with digital objects in interdisciplinary scientific practice

Abstract The aim of this article is to discuss how digital objects interactively participate in knowledge production in science. Data collected suggests that while scientific visualizations are employed with the aim to ‘simplify’ the apprehension of complex sets of data, there is much interpretive work that occurs before the group arrives at shared meanings concerning such images, which are in turn essential in establishing the truth of the mathematical models analyzed through such visual means. Shared understandings are achieved through oral communication and embodied interaction with visual objects, complementing the meanings which images and words purport to convey on their own.

Communicating through vulnerability: knowledge politics, inclusion and responsiveness in responsible research and innovation

ABSTRACTResponsible research and innovation (RRI) has affirmed the value of ‘inclusion’ and ‘responsiveness’ as institutional virtues necessary to ensure that reflexivity towards the social priorities behind innovation processes is made possible. It is argued that this affirmation links RRI to knowledge politics in other domains (e.g. environmental justice and the politics of development). It is suggested that lessons regarding inclusion and responsiveness can be drawn from these domains, focusing on the ways in which marginalised perspectives on need and vulnerability, once articulated, can help reconstitute the public sphere in which social priorities are defined. Three case studies are used to explore how entanglements of needs, vulnerabilities, identity and agency are vital to understanding the impacts of innovation and change more generally. It is argued that social science methodologies sensitised to such entanglements are necessary to help constitute a space of inclusion and responsiveness characte...

Reconsiderando a etnografia da ciência e da tecnologia: tecnociência na prática

This article discusses ethnography as a methodology for the research of subjects related to science and technology, in order to assess some of the challenges confronted by contemporary social sciences in such domain.the ethnographic approach is becoming a tool increasingly used in the analysis of the relations between science, technology and society. In a parallel movement, such subjects have increasingly become of interest for anthropology. The anthropological studies in this area offer a unique perspective that should be further explored, including the analysis of science as a social practice and the idea of technology as a total social fact. These approaches could enrich both the field of science, technology and society, and the anthropological studies of contemporary science and technology in society.

Scientists as citizens and knowers in the detection of deforestation in the Amazon.

This paper examines how scientists deal with tensions emerging from their role as providers of objective knowledge and as citizens concerned with how their research influences policy and politics in Brazil. This is accomplished through an ethnographic account of scientists using remote sensing technology, of their knowledge-making activities and of the broader socio-political controversies that permeate the detection of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Strategies for mitigating uncertainty are central aspects of the knowledge practices analyzed, bringing controversies ‘external’ to the laboratory ‘into’ the lab, making these boundaries conceptually problematic. In particular, the anticipation of alternative interpretations of rainforest cover is a crucial way that scientists bring the world into the lab, helping to shed light on how scientists, usually seen and analyzed as isolated, are in fact often in constant dialogue with the broader political controversies related to their work. These insights help question the idea that the monitoring of deforestation through remote sensing is a form of secluded research, drawing a more complex picture of the dual role of scientists as knowledge producers and concerned citizens.

Construindo imagens e territórios: pensando a visualidade e a materialidade do sensoriamento remoto

This article offers a reflection on the question of the image in science, thinking about how visual practices contribute towards the construction of knowledge and territories. The growing centrality of the visual in current scientific practices shows the need for reflection that goes beyond the image. The object of discussion will be the scientific images used in the monitoring and visualization of territory. The article looks into the relations between visuality and a number of other factors: the researchers that construct it; the infrastructure involved in the construction; and the institutions and policies that monitor the territory. It is argued that such image-relations do not just visualize but help to construct the territory based on specific forms. Exploring this process makes it possible to develop a more complex understanding of the forms through which sciences and technology help to construct realities.This article offers a reflection on the question of the image in science, thinking about how visual practices contribute towards the construction of knowledge and territories. The growing centrality of the visual in current scientific practices shows the need for reflection that goes beyond the image. The object of discussion will be the scientific images used in the monitoring and visualization of territory. The article looks into the relations between visuality and a number of other factors: the researchers that construct it; the infrastructure involved in the construction; and the institutions and policies that monitor the territory. It is argued that such image-relations do not just visualize but help to construct the territory based on specific forms. Exploring this process makes it possible to develop a more complex understanding of the forms through which sciences and technology help to construct realities.

Teatro anatômico digital: práticas de representação do corpo na ciência

Contemporary scientific practices for representing the body are investigated ethnographically through a comparative analysis with the Renaissance anatomical theater, a practice used to understand the body in early modern science. First and foremost, I seek to reveal the manner in which visualization of the inside of the body produces knowledge of its functioning. The conclusion is that, currently, the production of knowledge greatly privileges the validation of code and modeling of the biological processes in which one wishes to intervene. The objective is to unveil the meaning of the circulation of images, data and theories that bring together material bodies, visualization techniques and scientists, enabling the production of truth about the body in a biological sense.Contemporary scientific practices for representing the body are investigated ethnographically through a comparative analysis with the Renaissance anatomical theater, a practice used to understand the body in early modern science. First and foremost, I seek to reveal the manner in which visualization of the inside of the body produces knowledge of its functioning. The conclusion is that, currently, the production of knowledge greatly privileges the validation of code and modeling of the biological processes in which one wishes to intervene. The objective is to unveil the meaning of the circulation of images, data and theories that bring together material bodies, visualization techniques and scientists, enabling the production of truth about the body in a biological sense.

On irresponsibility in times of crisis: learning from the response to the Zika virus outbreak

ABSTRACTThis perspective paper offers some first thoughts regarding the current Zika virus outbreak and the immediate response it generated in health and research policy. We suggest that in times of emergent health crises, irresponsibilities may arise in the way responses which involve science and technology are framed and implemented. These pertain both to how such situations emerge under a crisis frame, and to pre-existing irresponsibilities which condition how such crises unfold. Reflecting on these irresponsibilities helps to clarify both how crucial it is to promote responsibility in research and innovation in everyday situations, and how important it is to maintain vigilance in times of crisis. We argue that care for the future needs to incorporate attention to persisting inequalities, which become especially salient in moments of emergency and which condition how crises are dealt with and the role innovation is perceived to play in their solution.

Science and Policies of Deforestation in the Amazon: Reflecting Ethnographically on Multidisciplinary Collaboration

This chapter discusses results from an ethnography of a multidisciplinary scientific project focused on the Amazon. The ethnography shows that arriving at usable scientific results through interdisciplinary work can be a challenge because such sharing is conditioned by misunderstandings between disciplinary boundaries. These misunderstandings involve disparate views on the potentials of modelling to be applied to social phenomena, which affects how the knowledge production process was carried out in practice. By making these challenges visible and analysable, ethnography can be a powerful tool in such cooperative efforts, helping scientists to navigate issues which, although usually seen as problems, can be mobilized as an important part of the process of knowledge production.