When Boundary Organisations Fail: Identifying Scientists and Civil Servants in L’Aquila Earthquake Trial

Abstract

ABSTRACT Notwithstanding the alleged crisis of expertise, scientists increasingly act as expert advisors to governments, while organisations at the boundary between science and policy multiply. Experts in such contexts are often subject to contradictory injunctions, associated with the role of either scientist or public official. Role conflict is particularly intense when decisions informed by scientific advice have negative consequences. In these situations, boundary-work is ubiquitous, as scientists deny responsibility by dissociating themselves from policymaking and victims contest such claims. A better understanding of these dynamics requires that the concept of boundary-work be refined. A central distinction between two types of boundary-work is often neglected: on the one hand, people draw boundaries between cultural categories by defining their abstract features (‘Science is X’); on the other, people draw boundaries by identifying concrete things as instances of those categories (‘X is science’). Accordingly, when boundaries are unsettled, disputes over the cultural meaning of science can be definitional or identificational. An example illustrating the importance of this distinction is provided by the L’Aquila earthquake trial, a controversy that has been alternatively portrayed as a trial of science and as a trial of bad risk management.