[Xmca-l] Sheila Jasanoff on Civic Epistemology

[Andy Blunden]

In the course of reviewing the literature on climate change 
scepticism, I came across this wonderful writer, Sheila 
Jasanoff, who, as part of her argument against the idea that 
scientists' have about "public understanding of science" and 
if only the people had a better understanding of science, 
then things would be much better, introduced this idea of 
"civic epistemologies" which are different from country to 
country. From Marxist literature I was already aware of some 
of this, but she makes a detailed study of the differences 
between Britain, the US and Germany, which are immediately 
revealing. This caused me to reflect on Australian civic 
epistemology, and I almost laughed when I then recalled the 
debate on climate change we have had in Oz, and how it 
typifies our own civic epistemology.
Jasanoff has nothing to do with Vygotsky, but the CHAT 
critique of cross-cultural psychology, culture-free 
conceptions of knowledge and the historical formation of 
knowledge find plenty of resonances within Jasanoff's ideas.
I have attached a chapter from one of her more well-known 
books for the interest of xmca-ers.
Andy
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*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
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