Priya A. Kurian

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.

Science, governance, and public participation: an analysis of decision making on genetic modification in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The acceptance of public participation in science and technology governance in liberal democratic contexts is evident in the institutionalization of a variety of mechanisms for participation in recent decades. Yet questions remain about the extent to which institutions have actually transformed their policy practice to embrace democratic governance of techno-scientific decision making. A critical discourse analysis of the response to public participation by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA), the key decision-making body on genetic modification in Aotearoa/New Zealand, in a specific case demonstrates that ERMA systematically marginalized concerns raised by the public about risk management, ethics, and ecological, economic, and cultural issues in order to give primacy to a positivist, technological worldview. Such delegitimization of public perspectives pre-empts the possibility of the democratic governance of science.

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.

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.

Redesigning the architecture of policy-making: Engaging with Māori on nanotechnology in New Zealand.

Although there is an extensive literature on public engagement on the use of new and emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, there is little evidence of the participation of marginalised indigenous communities in processes of such engagement. How do particular cultural values and worldviews shape the perceptions of new technologies among such indigenous peoples? This article addresses this question through an analysis of the deliberations of an indigenous Māori citizens’ panel on nanotechnology in Aotearoa New Zealand. An active process of public engagement with the nation’s Māori stakeholders, and their conversations with nanotechnology experts, sustainability activists and Māori researchers, helps map an alternative, culture-based architecture of public engagement on policies around new technologies. The analysis is grounded in a concept of active citizenship that we term ‘sustainable citizenship’.

Imagining Organizational Communication as Sustainable Citizenship

Organizational communication scholarship has made significant strides in theorizing ethical (e.g., Seeger & Kuhn, 2011), socially responsible (e.g., May, Cheney, & Roper, 2007; Morsing & Schultz, 2006), environmentally sound (e.g., Cox, 2013), gender-sensitive (e.g., Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004; Buzzanell & Liu, 2005), race-sensitive (e.g., Ashcraft & Allen, 2003; Parker & Grimes, 2009), work–life balanced (Kirby & Buzzanell, 2014), and alternative (e.g., Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007; Dutta & Pal, 2010) ways of organizing and communicating. These strides notwithstanding, there has been very little research on what might constitute sustainable organizing and communicating in a rapidly changing and increasingly contentious world. In this essay, we build on a framework of “sustainable citizenship” (Kurian, Munshi, & Bartlett, 2014) to imagine an architecture of sustainable organizing and communicating that takes a fresh look at the idea of stakeholder engagement. The application of stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984) largely revolves around organizations strategically managing relationships with distinct and discrete publics with mutually exclusive agendas, interests, voices, and rationalities. However, in such formulations, business and corporate goals and values remain the drivers of engagement (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar, & De Colle, 2010) as is evident in the spawning projects on business ethics and corporate social responsibility, for example. As Whitman (2008) points out, this influence of business management theory on stakeholder discourse has led to an idea of “corporate citizenship,” which aims at

‘Shadow publics’ in the news coverage of socio-political issues

Coverage of contentious socio-political issues in the news media often involves the creation of ‘shadow publics’ that facilitate journalistic framing strategies. These publics are not easily identifiable but exert significant persuasive power by virtue of the authority ascribed to them. This article explores how the media create and legitimize certain shadow publics which then go on to influence public policy. The findings of the article come out of an examination of the extensive newspaper coverage of two highly debated issues – immigration and genetic modification – in New Zealand between 1998 and 2002. Although the coverage of the two issues was dramatically different, it was apparent that particular sections of the population were given greater voice over others in newspapers via the seemingly neutral yet strongly opinionated and influential shadow publics.

Socio-economic and political barriers to public participation in EIA: implications for sustainable development in the Maldives

Abstract Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a policy process that can lead to more sustainable development by preventing or mitigating the negative impacts of development projects. Public participation in the EIA process, especially one based on the ideals of deliberative democracy, is essential to deliver on the goal of sustainable development that is arguably the primary objective of EIA. This article specifically focuses on a study of public participation in the EIA process of the Maldives. Using a qualitative research design involving an analysis of documents and interviews, it investigates four aspects of a deliberative participatory process: fairness, competence, willingness and capacity. The analysis suggests that the process for public participation in the Maldives cannot be characterized as fully fair or competent. It further identifies several socio-economic barriers that affect the capacity and willingness of the actors to participate including political influence, lack of human and financial capacity, gender gap, loss of community spirit and lack of environmental and procedural awareness.