Abstract
This paper aims to open up high-level waste management practices to a political philosophical questioning, beyond the enclosure implied by the normative ethics approaches that prevail in the literature. Building on previous insights derived from mediation theory (in particular the work of Verbeek and Dorrestijn), Foucault and science and technology studies (in particular Jasanoff’s work on socio-technical imaginaries), mediation theory’s appropriation of Foucauldian insights is shown to be in need of modification and further extension. In particular, we modify Dorrestijn’s figure of “technical determination of power relations” to better take into account the (literal and figurative) aspects of imagination, and complement Dorrestijn’s work with the figures of techno-scientific mediation, and the inherently political figures of socio-technical and state-technical mediation, both based on Foucault’s notion of governmentality. Our analysis implies that the practical implementation of a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) management strategy will require the “stitching together” of these different mediations, which is an inherently political task.
Highlights
As expressed by international or supranational organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 2011) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD-NEA, 1995, 2007), a strong consensus has been established among nuclear industry actors that the best management option for nuclear high-level waste
We propose to rename the second figure of technical mediation as “technology as imagination,” thereby capturing the two aspects implied by Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticon, namely, the idea that this form of technical mediation should be understood as a “politicaltechnological figure” or “diagram of a power mechanism reduced to its ideal form”, and the idea that under this form of mediation technology is able to capture the imagination of those in power
Our main aim in this paper was to introduce a political questioning in mediation theory, in dialogue with an investigation of the highlevel nuclear waste (HLW) management program in Belgium
Summary
Even though the philosophy or ethics of technology was never the main theoretical concern for Foucault, the use of notions such as “technique” or “technology” is pervasive throughout his work. Resistance, or friction, its functioning may be imagined as a purely architectural and optical system, but it should be understood as a political-technological figure, which can and must be seen apart from each specific application Following this clarification, we propose to rename the second figure of technical mediation as “technology as imagination,” thereby capturing the two aspects implied by Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticon, namely, the idea that this form of technical mediation should be understood as a “politicaltechnological figure” or “diagram of a power mechanism reduced to its ideal form” (as an “image-ination” in a literal sense—i.e., the making of an image), and the idea that under this form of mediation technology is able to capture the imagination of those in power. The crucial importance of imagination in technological mediation has been extensively analyzed by STS scholars Jasanoff and Kim (2009). These authors coin the notion of “sociotechnical imaginaries,” defined as “...collectively imagined forms of social life and social order reflected in the design and fulfilment of nation-specific scientific and/ or technological projects...” (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009, p. 120), which aligns very well with our notion of “technology as imagination.” In what follows, we further specify the functioning of these (amended and complemented) figures of mediation in Dorrestijn (2012) in the context of HLW management, starting with the central role of the imagination of “forgetting-by-not-showing” that provides the cornerstone for the elaboration of the entire HLW management program
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
