‘All things weird and scary’: Nanotechnology, theology and cultural resources

Abstract

Nanotechnology is widely suggested to be fast becoming a defining technology of the twenty-first century. This ‘science of the very small’ has applications in areas from medicine to materials, and is predicted to have profound effects on social life. In this paper, we draw on a study of lay people's reflections on the ethics of nanotechnologies to focus on the talk of one group of participants, from a UK church. While we identify key themes which are common across all participants, including nanotechnology as a threat to the human, the importance of individual autonomy, and distrust of the large-scale drivers behind the technology, we argue that the church-going group have a specific set of cultural resources with which to articulate responses to these. Using a language of spirituality and relationality these participants are able to express shared notions of what nanotechnology threatens (and promises), and can therefore be seen as exemplary of lay negotiations of these issues.

Keywords:

• nanotechnology
• religion
• science
• lay talk

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation with Emerging Nanotechnologies) project, an EU Sixth Framework Programme funded project and Europe's leading partnership for integrated understanding of the ethical challenges posed by nanotechnologies (see http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/projects/deepen). We would like to acknowledge productive discussions around this topic with the other DEEPEN partners. We would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for their comments.

Notes

1. See the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills' (2008) consultation on ‘Science and Society’ for the most recent iteration of this policy discourse.

2. See http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer/

3. We sought to develop selection criteria where groups of people were likely to develop deep conversations based on shared experiences and where arguments about nanotechnology could be jointly developed. While we did not seek representativeness (being interested more in the range and variability of meanings in the population at large), we nevertheless aimed to tap into significant fractions of society. We thus selected groups around commonalities likely to be of relevance to the discussion of nanotechnology. Based on previous research, relations to the body, environmental issues, technology, governance, notions of limits and moral boundaries, and a sense of personal agency were all seen as likely to be key in structuring responses to nanotechnology (Kearnes et al. 2006b), and groups were selected around relationships to these factors. The final groups were as follows:

• Church attenders group, recruited from a single church.

• Student environmental group, recruited from the organisation People and Planet.

• Natural health group (users of organic produce and natural health techniques).

• Confident believers group (positive towards technology and its governance).

• Local involvers group (active or potentially active within local community).

• Authority figures group (sense of personal agency and control).

4. Kearnes et al. (2006b) review this early public attitude research and the predictable pattern of results.

5. Similarly, previous work has examined the repertoires of resources present within expert cultures (Rip 2006) or those presented by media sources (Te Kulve 2006).

6. While the church attenders group was selected specifically for their religious affiliation, the groups were not selected in ways that were mutually exclusive and therefore other groups may have contained participants with religious belief. However, no other groups were brought together around a commonality of expressed faith, and identities in these groups tended to be constructed around secular features (such as a love of technology or activity within the local community).

7. A well-known hymn, often used in schools and at weddings.

8. Where we show extracts of conversations (rather than quotes from individuals), we provide anonymised names to indicate speakers. ‘Mod’ indicates the focus group moderator.