Eclectic, random, intuitive? Technology assessment, RRI, and their use of history

Abstract

ABSTRACTTechnology assessment (TA) allows deliberate and anticipatory governance of sociotechnical transformation processes. Which bodies of knowledge TA practitioners typically use for their work has been discussed for some time now. Relatively little attention has been paid so far to the use of historical knowledge in TA. This might be even more astonishing as the knowledge about futures that TA provides is substantially based on analyzing and abstracting past developments, discovering similarities to current processes and finally drawing conclusions therefrom about possible futures. Typically, producers of anticipatory knowledge randomly employ an intuitive handling of the historicity of their subject matter; when it comes to the selection of literature they proceed eclectic. In this paper, we describe which kinds of historical representation appear in TA and responsible research and innovation (RRI) practitioners’ line of vision and how historical knowledge could be used to assess enactor–selector games. With this conceptual contribution to the ongoing debate of orientation for TA and RRI, we call for a more deliberated treatment of ‘historical knowledge’ in both fields.