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Chapter 7: Long-Term Struggles and Uncertain Futures
- Temple University Press
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❖ W hat does the future hold for democratizing science movements ? Are we headed in a direction where science can serve as a pathway for democracy, or will it continue often to limit citizen influence? A plethora of the most controversial recent social debates have begged this question—from those over end-of-life decisions that the Terri Schiavo case raised (Koch 2005) to debates about intellectual property rights or bioprospecting in developing nations (Dorsey 2004), challenges to complex and valueladen science are being posed by nonexperts. Movements are forming in response, and policies are being made. This chapter examines the most recent and some of the most controversial projects instigated by the EBCM and the ADM. The purpose here is to look at the long-term struggles that each of these movements is now engaged in and attempt to assess how they and other DSMs remake themselves under changing global and scientific conditions. The cases in this chapter——EBCM organizing in California that led to Breast Cancer and Environment Research Centers funded by NIEHS, and defeat and development of Belo Monte and Rio Madeira dams—indicate both what these movements may be able to achieve in the future and how they continue to raise concerns that go unresolved. They also beg the broader question of what role the lay public should play in charged decisions about science, research, and technology. Since they are both the outcomes of years of struggle, they raise and begin to answer several important questions. What Long-Term Struggles and Uncertain Futures 7 Long-Term Struggles and Uncertain Futures ▪ 143 happens as DSMs grow and become more established? Do they move from engaging in science to other activities? Or do they grow so scientifically engaged that the tactic is critical to organizing? Are they able to achieve more or less policy change? Although the answers to these questions will not be resolved in this book, some recent findings point to the critical nature of these questions. Researchers are discovering that the public sees that scientists are influenced by economic interests and need to take new approaches (Luján and Todt 2007). Scholars also claim that debates over the impacts of new technologies lead to greater interrelationship between the public and scientists rather than more disenfranchisement (Stilgoe 2007). However, policies are still in place that discourage real citizen involvement in science (Schibeci and Harwood 2007). These concerns are present around the world, in Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and many other countries. Controversies relate to many different types of scientific and social developments. The two following examples tell us something about how engagement or disenfranchisement plays out, and where we will go from here. They raise questions of globalization, the trajectory of managing new biotechnologies, and whether movements will lead to more or less precaution. Belo Monte: Shaping Science, Changing Policy In January 1989, one of the few truly international anti-dam protests in Brazil took place to counter the proposal of a large hydroelectric dam plan in the eastern Amazon. Irish rock star Bono, international media attention, and powerful NGOs appeared. Later shown in the international press and several films, a Kayapo woman brandished machetes at an official (Fisher 1994). This protest put at least a temporary end to construction plans. Because these plans were coordinated by the most authoritarian state electric energy sector, Eletronorte, movement abilities to halt construction of Belo Monte on the sparsely inhabited Xingu River in Amazonas are striking. If constructed, the dam would be massive, with three times the generating capacity of Tucuruí; its construction would cost a projected $11 billion; and it would create a reservoir of 400 square kilometers (Pinto 2002). The majority of the energy was meant to be transmitted 3,300 kilometers away to more urbanized centers and industry in the center and south of the country. Following the rejection of plans for Belo Monte, government planners went back to the drawing board and created a second model [44.195.30.216] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 17:01 GMT) 144 ▪ Chapter 7 that they called an engineering marvel. Table 7.1 portrays the differences between the first and second models. The left-hand column represents numbers from the 1989 model, and the right-hand column characterizes the new model developed in 2002. This model was technically far more complicated and innovative. Rather than a dam that would create a large reservoir, the new model was a runthrough dam that depended on the river’s current to...