ECREA16-Abstract

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Friday, November 11

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SCI01

Sustainable Futures: Life and Communication

PP 322

Grand Challenges on Stage: Contesting the Power of Science and Innovation to Solve Major Complex Problems in the World

K.H. Nielsen

Aarhus University, Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus C, Denmark

The grand challenges approach in science and innovation policy-making means identifying ambitious but achievable social, economic and environmental

goals that are used to direct future investments.The first grand challenges programwas launched by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation in 2005 in search

of solutions to health problems in the developing world. In 2013, President Obama launched grand challenges thinking as a way in which “help catalyze

breakthroughs that advance national priorities.” Impact assessment carried out as part of the Horizon 2020 policy formulation process in Europe also used

the grand challenges approach in an attempt to boost European scientific and industrial leadership, while also making sure that science and innovation

increasingly contributes to the resolution of key societal and environmental challenges. The promotion of the grand challenges approach thus is a way in

which to energize the scientific and engineering community, while at the same mobilizing (intra)governments, the media and the general public in support

of science and innovation. Grand challenges have two defining features: Firstly, they are globally extensive and inter-systemic, which means that they have

increased potential to spread geographically and interact in novel ways. Secondly, due to the sheer scale and complexity of the risks involved, the reality

of grand challenges is far from obvious, but rather relies on what Ulrich Beck in his book World at Risk (2009) calls “staging”, i.e. mediated anticipation

and negotiation of the very nature of, but also future solutions to these challenges. Following Beck, this paper will start out on the presumption that as

powerful a tool for science and innovation policy-making the concept of grand challenges may be, the distinction between the reality of grand challenges

and the their cultural perception remains blurred. The same grand challenge and the means of addressing it become real in different ways depending on

the cultural perspective of the person, media or institution that perform the assessment. At the core of this paper is the attempt to explore empirically

the staging of grand challenges by different actors, institutions and media in different national or regional settings. With reference to Stephen Hilgartner’s

work on expert advice in Science on Stage (2000), which again draws heavily on sociologist Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective on everyday inter‑

action, the paper seeks to understand the ways in which the grand challenges approach not only perform the role of science and innovation in society, but

also open up for new anticipations and negotiations of the past, present and future of science and innovation.

PP 323

Green Conflicts as Discursive Struggles over the Common Good

A. Horsbøl

Aalborg University, Dept. of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg, Denmark

’Green’concerns about nature, the environment or the climate have traditionally been juxtaposed with concerns about economic growth or job creation, or

efforts have been made to dissolve this opposition via conceptions like ‘sustainable growth’ or ‘ecological modernization’ (Hajer 1995). Recently, however,

a new type of conflict has appeared, in which different green concerns collide. For instance, the construction of wind turbines, solar heating systems or

biogas plants, established not at least to reduce carbon emission and mitigate climate change, has been opposed with reference to the protection of land‑

scape values, nature and the quality of life for local residents. This has given rise to heated conflicts where local inhabitants, media and municipalities are

central players with national authorities, NGO’s and experts involved on both sides. This paper will address the new green conflicts as discursive struggles

over how to represent the common good when it comes to the environment, i.e. whether concerns about natural environments and landscapes are asso‑

ciated with common or just particular interests, and how these interests are articulated discursively. An important aspect is the scales of time and space

(Lemke 2000, Chilton 2004) invoked in the debate. As for temporality, concerns about the local environment may for instance invoke the idea of a natural

heritage of a place which extends far back in time and calls for common responsibility many years ahead, or they may be limited to the particular needs

of the present. Similarly, the range of interests can spatially be expanded to a matter of a wider community (ultimately to the whole world as in the case

of UNESCO’s World Heritage List) or narrowed down to the particular economic interests or to the personal taste of a few stakeholders (cf. the infamous Not

In My Backyard attitude). The paper will analyze these 'scalations' of time and space and the ways in which they contribute to conflicting representations

of the common good in green conflicts. Moreover, central topoi (Wodak et al. 2009, Wengeler 2013) which are employed to weigh the opposing concerns

in the conflict, will be analyzed. Empirically, the paper will present a case study from a green conflict in Western Denmark. Texts from local or regional

media will form the empirical basis of the analysis, supplemented with material from social network sites, press releases and petitions. References Chilton,

Paul (2004): Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Hajer, M. A. (1995). The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological

Modernization and the Policy Process. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lemke, J.L. (2000). Across the Scales of Time: Artifacts, Activities and Meanings in Ecosocial

Systems. Mind, Culture and Activity, 7(4), 273–290. Wengeler, M. (2013). Historische Diskurssemantik als Analyse von Argumentationstopoi. In D. Busse &

W. Teubert (eds.) Linguistische Diskursanalyse: neue Perspektiven. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Wodak, R. et al. (2009). The Discursive Construction of National

Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2

Edition.

Science and Environment

Communication

(SCI01–SCI06)