Democratising technology
Reclaiming science for sustainable development
Auteur(s): WAKEFORD Tom
Date de publication: novembre 2004
Publié par: ITDG
Content
Democratising Technology:
1 Introduction
* Beyond access
* Three snapshots
* The democratic technology agenda
2 Nine experiences of democratising technology
* 2.1 A major UK medical research charity brings non-specialist carers into the decision-making process about how it spends its research funds.
* 2.2 An Indian indigenous peoples’ movement revives a deliberative and participatory process of governance and uses it to tackle the challenges presented by new agricultural technologies.
* 2.3 A top-down agricultural reform programme in Indonesia turns into a bottom-up movement for political accountability and agricultural change.
* 2.4 An ITDG Zimbabwe initiative draws on farmers’ knowledge to work towards the restoration of local food security.
* 2.5 A landless workers’ movement in Brazil supports low cost agro-ecological technologies and challenges the introduction of GM crops by transnational corporations.
* 2.6 An ITDG project in Sudan combines external with local knowledge to improve brick-making technologies and enlarge markets for co-operatives using the new techniques.
* 2.7 IT manufacturing workers in Scotland and Thailand forge research alliances to challenge the lack of corporate and government accountability with regard to workers’ health.
* 2.8 Indian community groups form alliances with UK research institutes to create an accountability forum for Indian scientists and policy-makers on future agricultural technologies.
* 2.9 Two citizens’ jury initiatives on GM crops - one overseen by a multi-stakeholder consortium and the other carried out by a government agency - provide contrasting qualities of input into the UK government’s GM debate.
3 Lessons from the experiences
* Is the objective to give participants opportunities to take control of issues that concern them fundamentally?
* Is the initiative under collective rather than hierarchical control?
* Is adult literacy necessarily a pre-condition in the short term?
* Is there sensitivity to gender and other inequalities within the process?
* Are there safeguards against domination by the agendas of a single stakeholder?
* Table: Areas of stronger and weaker performance in democratising technology
4 Issues for the future
* HIV/AIDS
* Intellectual property rights
* Climate change
* Nanotechnology
5 Principles of democratising technology
* The magic bullet myth
* Analysing the relationship between knowledge and power
* How to do it: competent technology-democratising processes
* Creating alliances for change
6 Towards broader-based alliances
7 Further reading
neuf expériences participatives en matière de recherche et technologie
Langue(s): anglais (Liechtenstein)
Le(s) document(s) complet(s):
itdg_wakeford_report_nov04 [ .pdf (340 ko ) ]