IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001253163

Changing Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Knowledge Gaps: STS Insights into Procedural Justice (2013)

Science, Technology and Human Values
Volume: 38, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 250-270

Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of special issue “Entanglements of Science, Ethics, and Justice”
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Procedural justice, or the ability of people affected by decisions to participate in making them, is widely recognized as an important aspect of environmental justice (EJ). Procedural justice, moreover, requires that affected people have a substantial understanding of the hazards that a particular decision would impose. While EJ scholars and activists point out a number of obstacles to ensuring substantial understanding---including industry's nondisclosure of relevant information and technocratic problem framings---this article shows how key insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) about the nature of knowledge pose even more fundamental challenges for procedural justice. In particular, the knowledge necessary to inform participation in decision making is likely not to exist at the time of decision making, undermining the potential for people to give their informed consent to being exposed to an environmental hazard. In addition, much of the local knowledge important to understanding the consequences of hazards will develop only after decisions have been made, and technoscientific knowledge of environmental effects will inevitably change over the period during which people will be affected by a hazard. The changing landscape of knowledge calls into question the idea that consent or participation during one decision-making process can by itself constitute procedural justice. An STS-informed understanding of the nature of knowledge, this article argues, implies that procedural justice should include proactive knowledge production to fill in knowledge gaps, and ongoing opportunities for communities to consent to the presence of hazards as local knowledge emerges and scientific knowledge changes.

...More

Included in

Article Mamo, Laura; Fishman, Jennifer R. (2013) Why Justice? Introduction to the Special Issue on Entanglements of Science, Ethics, and Justice. Science, Technology and Human Values (pp. 159-175). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001253163/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Akera, Atsushi; (2007)
Constructing a Representation for an Ecology of Knowledge: Methodological Advances in the Integration of Knowledge and Its Various Contexts (/isis/citation/CBB000780234/)

Article Valeriani, Simona; (2012)
Three-Dimensional Models as “In-Between-Objects”: The Creation of In-Between Knowledge in Early Modern Architectural Practice (/isis/citation/CBB001252258/)

Thesis Puddephatt, Antony J.; (2006)
Rethinking George Herbert Mead: Implications for Contemporary Theories ofKnowledge, Science, and Technology (/isis/citation/CBB001561534/)

Book Knorr-Cetina, Karin; (1999)
Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB000501122/)

Book Carrier, Martin; (2011)
Wissenschaftstheorie zur Einführung (/isis/citation/CBB001420974/)

Article Lamy, Jérôme; Saint-Martin, Arnaud; (2011)
Sciences et État: note critique sur quelques propositions théoriques (/isis/citation/CBB001420555/)

Article Mead, Walter B.; (2011)
A Symposium on the Relevance of Michael Polanyi's Insights to a Reformulated Understanding of Science, Technology, and Society (/isis/citation/CBB001034400/)

Article Vanpaemel, Geert; (2011)
Introduction: Networks and Institutions in the Circulation of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB001251333/)

Book Mazzoni, Cosimo Marco; (2002)
Ethics and Law in Biological Research (/isis/citation/CBB000201248/)

Article M'charek, Amade; Hagendijk, Rob; Vries, Wiebe de; (2013)
Equal before the Law: On the Machinery of Sameness in Forensic DNA Practice (/isis/citation/CBB001320664/)

Book Carrier, Martin; Howard, Don; Kourany, Janet; (2008)
The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited (/isis/citation/CBB000953152/)

Article Fuller, Steve; (2006)
A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies (/isis/citation/CBB000780207/)

Chapter Lisa Shapiro; (2010)
Descartes on Human Nature and the Human Good (/isis/citation/CBB057685352/)

Article Nowotny, Helga; Scott, Peter; Gibbons, Michael; (2003)
Introduction: “Mode 2” Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB000780249/)

Article Lynch, Michael; (2006)
From Ruse to Farce (/isis/citation/CBB000780206/)

Book Stark, Laura; (2012)
Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Reseach (/isis/citation/CBB001221168/)

Thesis Lavi, Shai Joshua; (2001)
The Modern Art of Dying: The History of Euthanasia in America (/isis/citation/CBB001562466/)

Article Pelaprat, Etienne; Hartouni, Valerie; (2011)
The Neural Subject in Popular Culture and the End of Life (/isis/citation/CBB001252271/)

Article Carrie Friese; Nathalie Nuyts; (July 2018)
From The Principles to the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act: A Commentary on How and Why the 3Rs Became Central to Laboratory Animal Governance in the UK (/isis/citation/CBB168499269/)

Book Bainham, Andrew; Sclater, Shelley Day; Richards, Martin; (2002)
Body Lore and Laws (/isis/citation/CBB000201225/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}