http://www.ucl.ac.

uk/sts/locating-technoscience

ESRC Research Seminar: Locating Technoscience

The Geographies of Science, Technology and Politics

The ‘geography of science’ is of growing interest and significance. Concerns about the geographies of science
and technology feature prominently in the activities of government, industry and civil society, at many scales.
There are questions around the development and implications of a global knowledge economy, the spatial
contexts to technological innovation and regulation, and the changing boundaries between public and
private scientific enterprise. These issues are simultaneously reflected in efforts to create new spaces for
publics to engage with the production of scientific knowledge and application in diverse contexts. Such
questions are the focus of recent academic research in different disciplines, with increased interest by Human
Geographers in social studies of science and technology, whilst the Science and Technology Studies (STS)
community has begun to address spatiality as a crucial aspect of the study of technoscience. However,
despite this ‘trading zone’ for ideas and approaches, there has been surprisingly little sustained interaction
between scholars in the two disciplines. This two-year ESRC seminar series aims to bring together new and
established researchers working from Geography and STS perspectives, alongside practitioners interested in
the geographies of science, to develop shared insights and create new perspectives on the role of space in
the practices of technoscience.

1. Making Space 2. Laboratory 3. Locating emergent 4. Spaces of secrecy 5. Geographies of

for Science Lifeworlds? technologies and transparency power and
responsibility

The first conference In this seminar, we Emergent technologies Much work in The final conference
addresses the inter- explore the importance raise questions for both Geography and STS is addresses the political
disciplinary challenge of geography in Geography and STS. premised on methods and policy dimensions
of conceptualising a understanding the Focusing on case that follow actors into to the project of
‘geography of scientific production of lay studies of nano- the spaces of creating a ‘geography of
knowledge’. Through knowledges. Both technology, this seminar knowledge production. scientific knowledge’.
keynote speakers and building on and explores the influence This seminar explores In concluding, we seek
workshops, the seminar questioning the social of place in shaping pat- the limits to these to explore how spatial
will showcase and and spatial imaginaries terns of technological models of openness, accounts of knowledge
discuss the concepts, underpinning much emergence. We also through charting the and power can
topics, and research work in the public consider how spaces complex performance contribute to the better
methods used to understanding of such as the city, region of transparency and governance of science,
explore the geographies science, we seek to and nation, are secrecy in different and consider the
of science in both generate new insights implicated in producing commercial, military implications of ‘locating
geography and STS, into the demo- new technologies as and state contexts, technoscience’ for all
whilst examining the cratisation of expertise the object of considering the institutions involved in
opportunities for in an increasingly government policy, difference such the production of
dialogue between complex society. economic interest or spatialities make to the knowledge.
them. public attention. practices of science.

April 2006 July 2006 November 2006 April 2007 July 2007
UCL Oxford Cambridge Sussex UCL

Seminar Organisers Participation in seminars will

be by invitation. To register
Dr Gail Davies, Department of Geography, UCL your interest please consult
Dr Brian Balmer, Centre for Bioscience and Society, UCL the web, contact us or
Dr Charles Thorpe, Science and Technology Studies, UCL complete the form overleaf.
Professor Sarah Whatmore, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford
Dr Robert Doubleday, Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge
Dr Adam Hedgecoe, Department of Sociology, University of Sussex