Dear Colleagues,
I’m afraid we have had to cancel tomorrow’s (Wednesday 27
January) London PUS seminar, due to unforeseen circumstances. Our apologies to everyone who was planning to
come.
The next seminar will be at 4.15pm on Wednesday
24th February 2016, in room QUE3 28/29 at LSE and we are delighted to announce that our
speaker will be Professor Martin Bauer
from LSE, talking about ‘Atoms, Bytes and Genes – Public Resistance and
TechnoScientific responses’. His
abstract is below and more details are on our website.
Subsequent seminars will be on 16th
March and 25th May 2016. Details of speakers to follow.
Hope to see you in February.
Best wishes
Jane Gregory
Martin Bauer
Simon Lock
Melanie Smallman
4.15pm,
Wednesday 24th February 2016, Room QUE3 28/29, LSE
Professor
Martin Bauer, LSE: ‘Atoms, Bytes and Genes – Public Resistance and
TechnoScientific responses’.
Martin
Bauer will present and discuss the key theoretical ideas of his recent books ‘Resistance
– and the Practice of Rationality (Cambridge, Scholars, 2013) and ‘Atoms,
Bytes & Genes – public resistance and techno-scientific responses (NY,
Routledge, 2015). Tarde (1890) had influentially argued that creativity and
invention have none or little regularity, while the diffusion of new ideas and
practices follows the ’laws of imitation’. This influential idea of
mindless-but-lawful imitation remains influential in the model of diffusion of
innovation and the linear model of science -> engineering -> marketing.
He will argue that the logistic-sigmoid model of diffusion with the tipping
point (maybe at 50%) is a special case, namely when there is no resistance in
the process; a very rare case which begs the question: why does the dog not
bark (as in Sherlock Holme’s story)? Why is there no resistance? More common
are efforts of mobilisation for change processes that encounter resistance, and
then we must ask: what does resistance contribute to the process? He will argue
that the functions of resistance are analogous to pain in relation to everyday
activity: focussing attention where needed; enhancing the ‘bodily self-image’,
evaluating on-going mobilisation and urging strategic adaptation and
alterations to the plan. His pain model of resistance is a more realistic
account of the innovation process. He will illustrate the points made
with observations on the development biotechnology in Brazil, US and Europe
since the 1990 and its impact.