Chapter 4

In order to get closer to epistemological infrastructures used at a technical faculty, I take as an example the university, where I have been active as deputy dean for the faculty of technology as well as head of research at departmental level. How feminist technoscience can be a resource for research transforming processes deliberately trying to be answerable when society speaks back is shortly presented. The chapter contributes to the discussions about why an epistemological pluralism is needed at a technical faculty and why resources within feminist technoscience are relevant in this context.

Interventions in Epistemological Infrastructures

The challenges technical universities encounter, when the cooperation with public and private partners outside the university becomes a predominant reality, calls for transformation processes and actions. This is certainly the case at a technical university with an explicit profile of applied ICT (information and communication technology) in a region with strong development ambitions. Epistemological openness among people active at the university is a prerequisite for functional cooperation. This chapter concerns distributed knowledge processes as daily experiences at one of the campuses of Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), more precisely at campus Karlshamn. What resources can be used for staying confident, future oriented and innovative as an ICT researcher and an academic teaching staff? Referring to a development experience with so far good results, when it comes to student recruitment, research and campus building, resources for the epistemological infrastructures needed have been found within feminist research developed within a technical faculty - that is, within feminist technoscience⁵⁵.

Rationale

At technical faculties we have to encounter complex realities in our research and pertinent address our cooperation partners in private and public sector. We also have to encounter young people and their preferences in learning processes of higher ICT related education. The challenges in this situation involve transformation in more advanced ways than what has been expected and realized in our academic organization with long standing norms of stability and epistemological traditions. One fundamental condition for the transformation needed is to open up for and foster epistemological pluralism.

Ina Wagner contributes with some significant understandings. She argues (Wagner 1994) that the central idea of combining established forms of scientific inquiry with a social pragmatic of developing goals, methods, theories and products can be realised by epistemological pluralism and partial translations between situated knowledges of different communities.

It can never be stressed enough that fostering of epistemological pluralism is a challenge at a technical faculty, however juvenile or old. When we have learned to spell the word epistemology, when we have acknowledged that we do research and teach by walking on a certain epistemological infrastructure, then it is high time to question this infrastructure whether it is relevant enough, is appropriate enough for our located needs. My local need is based on the following.

Situated at a technical university⁵⁶ with an explicit profile of applied ICT with ambitions to be in close cooperation between university, business sector and government (local, regional and / or national), the challenges are huge on the epistemological openness for staff active at the university. The present knowledge and technology production occurs in situations far from what is identified by a traditional, mode 1 (Gibbons et al. 1994) university. A too closed and none reflected epistemological basis is a blockage for the daily work whether research or training students at basic and advanced level. That is why I am concerned.

Situated within distributed knowledge production systems

There is a widespread understanding of the production of knowledge and technology as processes taking place in distributed systems within the international feminist research strongly linked to the dominant technical fields of our era - information technology, biotechnology and material technology. I and my colleagues at BTH, campus Karlshamn have been deeply involved in the complex development process of a distributed knowledge and technology producing system called NetPort ⁵⁷ (Henningsson, Trojer, 2005). This is one of my most important learning sites of trying transformations in context of distributed knowledge processes.

Starting a new campus was a result of negotiations between the leadership of the university and the local government of the town Karlshamn, where the campus was to be located. At the same time the innovation node or innovation system NetPort was established. NetPort became later on an organization co-owned by the university, the local government and the business sector of the three focus areas chosen. The development of the campus and of Net Port started in the year 2000.

Developing a new campus for a university of technology in a Triple helix context needs at least 4 starting conditions, namely

1. undergraduate students
2. graduate students
3. epistemological acknowledgement of mode 2
4. tolerance towards resistance always appearing in development processes, especially internal.

In the year 2000 the Vice Chancellor of BTH (later on Director General of VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems) and after that VC of Lund University) approved the research division of ICT and Gender Research⁵⁸ at BTH, to take the main responsibility of starting to develop the new campus. This task was supported by BTH with a centrally appointed project coordinator. The division had competence to start bachelor programs in media technology and was already running a PhD program with a number of doctoral students. The division staff was strongly motivated to work with practicing Triple helix collaboration.

For his approval the VC had become convinced of condition 1 and 2 above. Condition 3 characterized the practice of the VC and seemed to be self-evident for him. The ambitions of the division to fulfill condition 3 were probably implicitly recognized by the VC as explicit interest was demonstrated in cooperation with stakeholders outside the university, of which the local government of the campus city was the main partner.

Concerning condition 4 the division had great help of understanding different kinds of resistance manifestations by the experience of Bo Ahrenfelt (2001). Peter Ekdahl (2005) stresses resistance in development and transformation processes to be important and energy creating, even though resistance is momentarily experienced as destructive and energy sucking. Without resistance the possibilities to focus the own direction of the development work is obstructed. The sectors mobilizing the strongest resistance are often sectors were transformation work is mostly needed. In addition resistance helps to detail and clarify what kind of development and transformation terms you need and push for dialogue.

Mutual understandings

How can the situation of academic work in co-evolving processes with society be comprehended? If our aims are to produce knowledge encountering the need of society and being robust enough for sustainable purposes, then we have to be serious about how we understand our knowledge producing systems. Socially robust knowledge can only be produced in a mixed environment. The knowledge will then be exposed to more intensive testing in various contexts. It will not be pre-determined but open to re-negotiations (Nowotny et al. 2001). In addition the site of problem identification moves from the academy to the agora⁵⁹, where science meets society and contextualisation occurs. We are facing processes of non-linear character. This is far from our traditional perceptions of sequential processes in first knowledge making in basic research followed by applied research or dissemination to exploitation of the knowledge in products for a private or public market. Nowotny et al (2003, p. 191) articulated this issue clearly in

reliable knowledge, the traditional goal of scientific inquiry, is no longer (self?) sufficient in the more open knowledge environments that are now emerging; knowledge also needs to be ‘socially robust’, because its validity is no longer determined solely, or predominantly, by narrowly circumscribed scientific communities, but by much wider communities of engagement comprising knowledge producers, disseminators, traders and users.

Strathern (2003, p.275) adds “Accountability is, of course, at the heart of the argument about socially-robust science, and its converse, scientifically robust accountability.”

What is highlighted in our practice and reference literature is that science and society are subject to the same driving forces in

• pervasiveness of a new economic rationality
• transformation of time and space (not the least as effects of ICT)
• demands for self-organising capacity
• generation of uncertainties and risks⁶⁰.

These processes can be described as science and society becoming transgressive fostering society to talk back to science. Jasanoff (2003, p.225) addresses the driving force for society to speak back in stating that uncertainties and risks are “part of the modern human condition, woven into the very fabric of progress. The problem we urgently face is how to live democratically and at peace with the knowledge that our societies are inevitably ‘at risk’ “.

An important dimension of how science and society now speaks back and forth is the issue of input of resources and output of results. In the linear way of thinking science and society, we are used to focus on the input of resources whether it comes from the government, public or private funding agencies etc. Gulbrandsen (2004, p.109) argues that

One of the most pressing interrogations for science policymakers the last 20-30 years has centred on output; how to secure an output from research that complies with economic, social, cultural and ethical concerns. Or reformulated to suit our more immediate concern: How can universities assure that choices made by scientists and engineers on campus contribute to responsible innovation? This challenge has by no means been satisfactory answered.

It gets increasingly evident that ‘society speaks back’ in forms of requiring to take part not only in the input phase but in the whole process (which more likely is non linear) up to the output of results. We have experienced in the NetPort context and on a municipality level how society represented by the local government explicitly manifest the need and engagement in being involved in the whole input - operation - output process⁶¹.

The engagement comes from the mutual ‘project’ of fostering sustainable development of the local and regional society. The prerequisite for this ‘project’ is a triple helix-like process (Etzkowitz, Leydesdorff 1997), which in our case is nurtured by a constant dialogue. In this dialogue, which is a kind of agora, mutual understandings starts to find its expressions and that in very concrete ways and a co-evolving process takes place. For us, who have been involved, we talk about an

establishment of the institution of a ‘kitchen cabinet’. A generous, open, inviting, allowing arena had to be created for the construction of new questions and dreams …. We need a lot of ‘kitchen cabinets’ on campus to cater for the polycentric, interactive and multipartite processes of knowledge-making we may dream of. A vision that entails transformative processes, changing research cultures and “teaching smart people how to learn:⁶² (Gulbrandsen 2004, p.120).

By shortly presenting the situated knowledges I have experienced within a distributed knowledge production system, I hope to make sense, when it comes to my claim on epistemological pluralism for the transformation needed at technical faculties. Below I will elaborate on why and how feminist technoscience can be a resource for developing epistemological pluralism and thus innovation systems.

Feminist technoscience as a resource

The feminist research conducted within engineering sciences at technical faculties has come to focus on the fundamental knowledge issues and on their development of theories and methodologies. The pertinent questions of boundaries and the transgression of the boundaries between science, technology, politics and society insist on terminology like technoscience. One of the scientists in the forefront of developing complex understanding and practice of this terminology is Donna Haraway. When focusing boundaries we have to keep in mind that boundaries “do not sit still” (Barad 2003, p. 817) underscoring our complex realities.

A joint feature of feminist technoscience is its research transforming ambitions. In many ways this is an obvious basis. In an international perspective we are dealing with an increasingly radical project of transformation (Trojer 2000). It is not good enough for a researcher to discover and map a waiting reality “out there” – that is to stay in the context of discovery. Research must focus the context of application as well as context of implication (Nowotny et al. 2001, 2003). As stated in chapter 2 “Time is ripe for us as partakers in the modern research complexes, to develop a readiness to think and feel ourselves as part of the problem, and learn how to use this, our implicatedness, as resources for transformatory projects.”

The notion of situated knowledge is emphasized in the technoscientific reflections. Haraway (1991, p.196) stresses that what we can reasonably bring about in our knowledge production can never be more than partial translations. Translations are always interpretative, critical and partial. These constitute the very condition to be heard, when we are claiming rational, relevant knowledge. Rational knowledge is founded within a process of ongoing critical interpretations among a number of interpreters. Rational knowledge includes power sensitive conversations. The world and its phenomenon, Haraway states, neither speaks itself or disappears in favour of one particular chosen interpreter or master decoder. The codes of the world do not find themselves silently waiting to be read.

We can ask ourselves why these kind of research activities are deeply involved in the development of a distributed knowledge production system like NetPort and is one of several driving forces in the development processes. The answer is to be found in some identified potentials and experiences of this research (Rydhagen, Trojer 2003, Björkman, Elovaara, Trojer 2005), namely to;

• expand the knowledge frames and practices for technology development in increasingly complex realities
• develop epistemological infrastructures relevant to a society heavily dependent on research and technology
• establish new arenas for developing understandings of relations between research, political sector and industry
• create driving forces for inter- and transdisciplinary constellations.

Building epistemological infrastructures

I recognize the necessity for co-evolving processes in core activities of our technical university. Relevance and situated knowledges compose keystones in our attempts to open up for the needed epistemological pluralism. We notice the transformation of the situated knowledge production in our context to move from contract negotiation / input focus towards co-evolution / the whole chain (input-operation-output) focus. The higher demand is obvious on the university and other stakeholders to argue for their relevance, in order to become an accepted partner in the present ICT knowledge development. From a university perspective this demand does not make academic knowledge production less motivating, less quality strong and a less desirable occupation, on the contrary.

What challenges are we facing in the near future as academics and feminist technoscientists at technical faculty and as co-workers in NetPort? The foremost challenge is the added value the core activities have to develop on a local, national and international level. The requirement is an intensified cooperation between the main triple helix actors – university, local government and private / public sector. We have to go further in the process of trilateral arrangements and sometimes even assuming the role of the other when needed and join in the efforts for the added, unique value. What is helping us is our engagement in generating epistemological pluralism relevant enough and appropriate enough for our located needs. This implies to continuously develop our understanding and practice of transformation, reality production (worldmaking), relevance and situated knowledges.

Karen Barad moves in linked epistemology fields and nurtures the development of epistemological pluralism. She argues (2003) that

“We” are not outside observers of the world. Nor are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity. This is a point Niels Bohr tried to get at in his insistence that our epistemology must take account of the fact that we are a part of that nature we seek to understand.…We are part of the world in its differential becoming.

I want to highlight the concept of intra-activity. What Barad means is the notion of intra-activity constituting a reworking of the traditional notion of causality. She is looking for alternatives to representationalism⁶³ and shifts the focus from “questions of correspondence between descriptions and reality (e.g., do they mirror nature or culture?) to matters of practices / doings / actions” and bring to the forefront the issues of ontology, materiality and agency. The discursive practices and material phenomena are mutually implicated in the dynamics of intra-activity and are not ontologically or epistemologically prior (neither can be explained in terms of the other), Barad states. Intra-activity is neither a matter of strict determinism nor constrained freedom. The future is radically open at every turn.