Participatory Approaches in Science and Technology

Abstract

Recent science and technology studies have analyzed questions of nonexpert participation in science, technology, and science policy from an empirically grounded perspective. This article was originally published as the introduction to a special issue of the journal <i>Science Technology & Human Values</i>. The article presents a summary of the state of the art and an outline of the historical emergence of the participatory question. The argument distinguishes four periods since the late nineteenth century, each with a specific relationship between expert and nonexpert knowledge ranging from a hybrid, to a politicized, to an autonomous, to a participatory relationship.