Governing nanotechnology: Codes, citizenship and strong democracy

Abstract

Knowledge is a form of power, but power for those who deploy it, not create it. New technoscientific programs, such as nanotechnology, are crucial realms for democratizing society since they aren’t ‘locked-in’ through technological momentum and because they are sites of cultural and technological production, which is another important form of power. Science and technology in the early 21st Century are mainly shaped by market (profit) and military priorities. Sometimes within these new areas, resistance to these pressures produces new ways of understanding how science and technology can contribute to a just and sustainable future. In nanotechnology research this tension can be seen in the various codes promulgated for its regulation. It is also clear in such theories and practices as cyborg citizenship, hybrid imagination, scientists’ social responsibility and activism, prefigurative practices such as art and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and Do-It-Together (DIT) organizing and the democracy and technology movement. They reveal how the development of nanotechnologies and the nanosciences can lead not just to new inventions and medical treatments, but to stronger democracy as well.