Author: Topçu, Sezin

Source: Nature and Culture, Volume 3, Number 2, Autumn 2008 , pp. 225-245(21)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

This article adduces evidence of the central role played by scientists in the 1970s and “lay persons” in the post-Chernobyl period in the production and legitimation of alternative types of knowledge and expertise on the environmental and health risks of nuclear energy in France. From a constructivist perspective, it argues that this shift in the relationship of “lay persons” to knowledge production is linked not only to the rise of mistrust vis-à-vis scientific institutions but also, and especially, to a change in the way they have reacted to “dependency” on institutions and to “state secrecy”. Counter-expertise is constructed as a politics of surveillance where alternative interpretations of risk are buttressed by a permanent critique of the epistemic assumptions of institutional expertise. The identity of “counter-expert” is socially elaborated within this process.

Keywords: COUNTER-EXPERTISE; ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM; FRANCE; LAY KNOWLEDGE; NUCLEAR POWER; SCIENTISTS' MOBILIZATION; SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2008.030205

Publication date: 2008-09-01

More about this publication?

• Nature and Culture is a forum for the international community of scholars and practitioners to present, discuss, and evaluate critical issues and themes related to the historical and contemporary relationships that societies, civilizations, empires, regions, nation -states have with Nature. The journal contains a serious interpolation of theory, methodology, criticism, and concrete observation forming the basis of this discussion. The mission of the journal is to move beyond specialized disciplinary enclaves and mind -sets toward broader syntheses that encompass time, space and structures in understanding the Nature-Culture relationship, as well as to encourage the identification of knowledge gaps in our understanding.
  
  Natrure and Culture receives financial support for its editorial operations from the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig.
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