Title, Keywords and Summary of PhD research

In 2009 I finished my MSc. Biology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, specializing in (adaptation) physiology and molecular biology research. During my studies I have followed a number of courses on history and philosophy of science and spent three months designing and organizing a highly successful exposition as part of the 2009 Darwin year. Interest in the broader, social aspect of biology led to the idea that eventually became my PhD project.

Title: Bioprospecting in the Genomics Era: Assessing the Normative Issues

Supervisors: Professor Hub Zwart, Professor Christoph Lüthy, Dr. Martin Drenthen, and Professor John Dupré (UK)

Summary      

Bioprospecting is the first step of charting the natural world around us in order for us to derive commercial products from nature. Mother Nature invents at a grand scale and a geological timescale, proving herself the superior inventor. We are starting to acknowledge this and are keen to exploit it for our own benefit.

Life in the extreme environment of the deep sea might be the oldest of the natural experiments, requiring the evolution of unique adaptations, which in turn can provide us with new ways to progress our own societal evolution. These remote areas of the planet constitute the largest ecosystems found on earth and provide an essential function in maintaining global ecosystem homeostasis. Knowledge about them started to develop at the end of the nineteenth century but only recently has the technology been developed to exploit the genomic resources (such as particular gene sequences) found in these areas. While our knowledge and understanding of these ecosystems is still in its infancy, the promise of striking ‘blue gold’ drives our knowledge economy driven mindsets to pursue the exploitation of these areas. Initiatives by governments such as the Norwegian to include bioprospecting as a pillar of their knowledge driven economy present us with the question if and how such undertakings can be sustainable in the long term. The science involved provides both the knowledge for progress and the understanding for conservation.

This project investigates the possible conflict between these two sides of deep sea research, assesses the normative issues and aims to construct an ethic for our interaction with the deep sea.

Drs. D. Haen

• Master of Arts in Philosophy (cum laude), Universiteit van Amsterdam 2008 Major: Philosophy of science & Political philosophy Thesis: The who and the what. On the tension between epistemic and normative legitimacy in Dingpolitik and deliberative democracy. Supervisor: prof. dr. ir. Gerard de Vries
• Visiting student, The New School for Social Research, New York 2006
• Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy (minor: Journalism), Universiteit van Amsterdam 2004

Summary

Title: Responsible innovation in food technology: about the intricate web of soft impacts, (ir)responsibilities, and mutual lack of trust.

Supervisor(s): Prof. dr. Philip Brey & prof. dr. Tsjalling Swierstra

Content

It has become generally accepted that responsible innovation of technologies cannot be left to the experts but requires a stakeholder dialogue. The prime goal of this research is to focus on the difficulties that cripple the chances of success for these debates. One of the difficulties is that experts and non-experts tend to have incommensurable perceptions of the societal impacts of technological innovation, especially in relation to soft (i.e. cultural, moral and political) impacts. There is systematic but not necessarily overt disagreement between stakeholders on the attribution of responsibilities. The dialogue between technology and society is structurally marred by controversy about what kinds of impacts should be taken seriously during technological innovation. In particular, soft impacts are by default denied by current risk assessment exercises. This diagnosis constitutes the starting point for my research: How can engineers, consumers, and other stakeholders, dialogue about soft impacts, so that at least some of these might gain access to research agendas and be taken into account in a common attribution of responsibilities? The problems pertaining to the definition of impacts, to the allocation of responsibilities, and to the organization of mutual trust, can all be traced in the (lack of) debate regarding food innovation. In particular, functional foods serves as an interesting example where conceptions of “naturalness”, “personal health” and the cultural significance of “the common meal” may diverge and invite for public deliberation. The goal of this research is to critically analyze the ways that soft impacts are framed in public discussions on food technology; to show how these conceptual and institutional framings imply a specific, implicit (lack of) attribution of responsibilities; and to explore alternative innovation repertoires that account for soft impacts as a legitimate concern in the science-society dialogue.

Drs. M. Hendriks

www.martijnhendriks.com

Title
Spatial Perception and Participation in Digital Games: The Lived Image

Keywords
Media theory, philosophy, visual culture, new media, transformations of the image

Summary
Martijn Hendriks (1973) received his Master's Degree in Arts and Sciences at the University of Maastricht’s Faculty of Arts and Culture, where he completed the interdisciplinary doctoral program of Visual Culture with honors. For his Master's thesis, entitled 'Enter the Image. Toward a Comparative Analysis of Virtual Space,' he was awarded the University of Maastricht’s 2003 Price for Scientific Achievement. Prior to his Doctoral education in Visual Culture, he studied at the Tilburg Academy for the Visual Arts and worked as a graphic designer, illustrator and organizer in the Dutch skateboarding scene. As a PhD candidate at the University of Maastricht, he is currently doing research into the phenomenology of new media. His project is part of the research programme Transformations in Arts and Culture, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, NWO.

The aim of his PhD project is to explore the significance of the visual perception of new media in relation to media theoretical notions about what new media mean to our conception of space and the body. In particular, in his project he investigates the complex phenomenological structure of participation and perception in digital culture by focusing on the spatial dimension of new media objects such as games. While spatiality has been the subject of much speculation and criticism in new media theory, little attention has been given to the complexity of its actual experience and conception by embodied spectators. That the issue of digital spectatorship is far from resolved is expressed by the predominance of two accounts of the cultural significance of digital space that seem to oppose and to exclude each other. The first holds that, in comparison with more traditional spatial representations such as perspective painting and cinema, the space of digital media invites a sense of total absorption, as it positions the player in the space of representation and requires her attention and activity within the space of the image to such a degree that she is completely immersed in the virtual space and oblivious of the real world outside. The second account emphasizes the spectator’s distance and control. Where traditional spatial representation relied on the willingness of the spectator to conform to a constructed point of view, spatial representation in digital culture allows the spectator the freedom to act, to move around, to make choices, and to manipulate or even construct the spectatorial positions suggested by the representation.

The research of new media transformations that resulted in Martijn Hendriks’ Master’s thesis suggests that both accounts are too one-sided. Playing digital games, for example, seems to rely on the tensions and exchanges between both positions. New media theorists still show a tendency to overlook this complex phenomenological structuring of spectatorship because they tend to focus on the virtual reality experience. VR seems to hold the cultural promise that the virtual and the real could somehow become one and that the illusion of immersion could be complete. Thereby the material presence of the visible screen and its function to separate virtual from physical space would tend to lose its cultural significance. The continuing popularity of screen-based media shows that the opposite might be true. In spite of the technological possibilities to develop interfaces that go beyond the screen, digital culture is still as much a ‘screen culture’ as film culture. In digital games the visual acknowledgement of the screen has even come to demand a pivotal role. This recognition allows us to trace both continuities and discontinuities between ‘analogue’ and digital media culture. Thus, while the experience of space by the film spectator is produced largely in spite of the spectator’s reflection on the materiality of the screen, the unreality of the film, and her active motor agency in relation to what is shown on the screen, the experience of space in digital games and many other new media is produced through this active, embodied and reflective position outside of the image.

This PhD project critically tests and develops this suggestion by combining theoretical research on the conceptualization of spatial and bodily experience in analogue and digital media with concrete case studies of new media forms in popular culture and the arts. The project starts from phenomenological studies of perception, media and technology foregrounding the connections between embodied perception, technological mediation and cultural signification (Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, Sobchack, Ihde), in order to formulate a vocabulary that will allow us to systematically investigate the constituents and structure of screen-mediated spatial experience. This is followed by a ‘close reading’ and comparative analysis of a small corpus of popular new media objects that solicit the lived, physical experience of the viewer. A central role will be assigned to the relation of the visual interface to the bodily and sensorial experience of digital space by the flesh-and-blood spectator. The analysis of the cases in turn will serve to critically evaluate and develop the theoretical framework of new media theory.

The project will result in a better understanding of ideals of perfection, and will enhance our understanding of the contemporary quest for the perfect body as a cultural phenomenon. It discloses the origin of many contemporary (and public) images of the perfect body. The project Collections of Perfection, in short, shows that the quest for the perfection of man is no newcomer to our culture and can therefore historically inform the current debate on the perfectibility of the human body.

Marijke Hermans holds a Bachelor degree in Communication Studies (Xios Hogeschool, Belgium, 2003), and a Bachelor of Arts in Arts and Culture (Maastricht University, 2006). She completed her studies with a two-year interdisciplinary Research Master in Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST) (Maastricht University, 2008). Before starting her PhD in 2009, Marijke worked as a junior researcher on two projects concerning risk controversies around mobile phones and base stations at the department of Technology and Society Studies (Contribution to WP 3 of European project ‘Implications of Biomedicine for the Assessments of Human Health Risks’, and a report for the Dutch Health Council).

Title: Beyond controversy. Interdisciplinary research on municipalities, mobile phone base stations and health risks.

Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Ir. M.B.A. Marjolein van Asselt (promotor), Prof. Dr. W.F. Wim Passchier (promotor), and Dr. Ragna Zeiss (co-promotor)

Summary

Content Risk and uncertainty are important features of modern life. Our current society is increasingly referred to as a risk society (Ulrich Beck), in which society is challenged to manage potentially negative outcomes of new scientific and technological developments. This PhD project focuses on one societal controversy dealing with risks and uncertainties in particular: the controversy around wireless communication technologies (GSM, UMTS, C2000, Wifi, etc).

While the majority of scientific experts emphasize that to date no consistent evidence has demonstrated health risks from the electromagnetic fields generated by these new technologies, there remain some uncertainties about long-term effects and effects on children. Contradictory media headlines – inspired by disagreeing experts – leave citizens more confused than enlightened about the possibility of risk, which nourishes societal anxiety and even resistance. Resistance is especially manifest against the siting of base stations and antennas for wireless communication technologies in the vicinity of residential areas in municipalities. Local citizens that mobilize against the siting of base stations often gather a remarkable amount of technical, scientific, legal and organizational knowledge about the issue with which they challenge the claims made by scientists, governments, city councils and legal courts. Municipalities increasingly find themselves in the middle of a conflict.

Although studies on technological developments often focus on the macro-level of policy regulation, the centre of risk controversies is mostly very local. This project therefore aims to study the controversies in municipalities in the Netherlands and Belgium. The project focuses on the dynamics and mechanisms underlying and determining the level and course of controversy by analyzing how different actors involved (experts, telecom industry, policy actors, housing corporations, legal actors, citizens, social movements, etc.) deal with uncertainty and risk and (scientific) knowledge. This PhD project hopes to contribute to ideas about responsible governance of innovation in view of risk.

Title
Civil society organizations in research and technological development: the case of Indian water management technologies

Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr  Ir. Wiebe E. Bijker, Dr Thomas Conzelmann

My research investigates forms, modalities and consequences of the engagement of civil society organisations with science, technology and policy in the field of water management in India. In doing so, both fabric and governance of Indian water management will constitute the empirical focal points of this project. Based on this the research aims to develop recommendations and approaches for policy-making which contribute to the democratization and sustainable development of science and technology.

H. Huistra MA

While January 2009 marks the starting point of his current PhD project, Fabian de Kloe (1982) received his MA “Arts & Culture” (Cum laude) in 2006 from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University. He graduated with a thesis that explores the ways in which a scientific fact is constructed and appropriated as it travels across various cultural domains (i.e. science, politics and journalism) by zooming in on debates between AIDS dissidents and the scientific community. After his graduation Fabian went on to work as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, teaching in various courses of the BA “Arts & Culture” in Maastricht.

Title: Beyond Babel: Science and Universal Language in the Early Twentieth Century.

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Ir.  Wiebe E. Bijker, Dr. Geert J. Somsen, and  Dr. Nico Randeraad

Summary

Fabian’s research project focuses on a specific moment in the development of scientific internationalism: the attempts to create a universal scientific language in the early twentieth century. From about 1900 onwards, several prominent European scientists set themselves to the task of ridding communication of the “dead weight” of national cultures – as the German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald called it – by creating a new language that would directly reflect the logic of reason. This new language was meant to be for science in order to support the traffic of knowledge through publications and at conferences. But it was also to be of science in that it was supposed to be the expression of both the rationality of science and its supranational character. These attempts are especially remarkable as they happened in a period when language was one of the most important vehicles of nationalism.

During the period between 1880 and 1914 language had become the principal identifier of national communities, both in the hands of nationalist agitators and in the work of government statisticians. On the one hand, the advocates of universal language broke this association of language with nation, since their aims lay at a global level. On the other hand, they copied from the nationalist movements the use of linguistic means for defining and promoting community – in this case international community. To expose the mechanism of this specific case of scientific internationalism, it is the aim of this research project to explore these paradoxes by investigating how scientific language schemes were and were not related to 1) dominant strands of nationalism, 2) other 19th and early 20th century internationalist movements, and 3) 19th and early 20th century developments within the scientific community. In this it draws on the constructivist approaches to the study of nations, as developed by Eric Hobsbawm and others, and it will pay particular attention to the various local roots (in Germany, France, and elsewhere) of the internationalist initiatives. Other research aims are to examine the reception of universal language proposals within the scientific community and their fate during and after the First World War.