Eclectic, random, intuitive? Technology assessment, RRI, and their use of history

ABSTRACT

Technology assessment (TA) allows deliberate and anticipatory governance of sociotechnical transformation processes. Which bodies of knowledge TA practitioners typically use for their work has been discussed for some time now. Relatively little attention has been paid so far to the use of historical knowledge in TA. This might be even more astonishing as the knowledge about futures that TA provides is substantially based on analyzing and abstracting past developments, discovering similarities to current processes and finally drawing conclusions therefrom about possible futures. Typically, producers of anticipatory knowledge randomly employ an intuitive handling of the historicity of their subject matter; when it comes to the selection of literature they proceed eclectic. In this paper, we describe which kinds of historical representation appear in TA and responsible research and innovation (RRI) practitioners’ line of vision and how historical knowledge could be used to assess enactor–selector games. With this conceptual contribution to the ongoing debate of orientation for TA and RRI, we call for a more deliberated treatment of ‘historical knowledge’ in both fields.

KEYWORDS:

• History
• responsible research and innovation
• technology assessment
• enactor–selector games

Motivation, aims, and scope of this paper

Typically, practitioners of technology assessment (TA) are fully aware that their work requires a multi-disciplinary approach. As a consequence, this usually means that they share contributions among experts from different fields. It is astonishing, however, that the need for expert knowledge on the historical dimension of the research topic – if this dimension is taken into account at all – is mostly ignored. Surprise and dissatisfaction regarding this state of affairs has thus led us to consider the relationship between TA and history and the possible conditions for their collaboration.

With this conceptual paper, we want to contribute to discussions about future theoretical orientations for TA and responsible research and innovation (RRI). A variety of observations of TA practices as well as a condensed description of our perspective on the relationship among TA, RRI, and history forms the basis of our further considerations. We ask whether history – that is, academic historical scholarship and comparable engagements with the past – can be beneficial for TA and RRI, and if so, how. We see this as a further attempt to map the diverse interactions between history and TA. Previous papers (e.g. Kranakis 1988) have tried to do this, but given that the field of TA has since developed and diversified and became part of a broader social-intellectual movement (see below), we feel that these interactions should be reassessed.

The aim of our paper is to (re-)ignite the debate and sensitize TA and RRI practitioners for this topic. We want to make them aware of the possible historicity of their research topic; offer first insights into what the ‘use’ of history in TA practices might look like; and open up discussions in TA and among TA, RRI, and history scholars about the value of future collaborations across the fields.

On technology assessment

TA refers to distinct, but nonetheless closely intertwined, movements in science and technology policy and science itself. Historically, the roots of TA can be traced back to two developments. The first is the formulation of comprehensive policies for scientific research, promotion of science, and diffusion of certain technologies in the United States and its European allies after WWII. These policies were designed to address the perceived need to rebuild exhausted capabilities for basic research on both sides of the Atlantic; to regain, maintain, and expand the economic strength of the Western societies; and to keep military capabilities at a high level. The foundations of modern science and technology policy were laid during this period, leading to a much deeper involvement of governmental actors in science and technology development (Lundvall and Borrás 2005; Gassler, Polt, and Rammer 2006).

This changing role of governments also led to new responsibilities. During the mid-sixties, public concern grew about the implications of the development and use of new technologies, which arose, inter alia, from the escalation of the Cold War and the war in Indochina, increasing knowledge about the environmental consequences of the use of certain technologies, and controversies about future nuclear and space policies. In light of these concerns, policy-makers in parliaments began investigations into the negative implications of new technologies (Schevitz 1992). They also (re-)introduced the previously neglected analysis and consideration of non-technical dimensions in the science and technology decision-making process. As the second root of TA, they installed institutions specifically aiming at advising policy-makers about scientific developments and related policies as well as their broader societal implications (Schmittel 1994), thus establishing a form of TA today considered ‘classic’ TA.

This move, in turn, has triggered at least three developments in academic studies:

• Reflecting on the role of policy-makers and TA institutions in the science and technology policy process itself and thus embedding debates about TA and its institutions in the broader science and technology studies (STS) and science policy and innovation studies (SPIS) landscapes as well as in other academic disciplines (e.g. Wynne 1975; Kranakis 1988; Smits and Leyten 1991; Gloede 1992; Van Eijndhoven 1997);

• Using this research to propose, conceptualize, and apply new forms of TA beyond the ‘classic’ parliamentary TA model of the sixties and seventies (Smits and Leyten 1991), hence leading towards a broader foundation of TA as a program ‘to reduce the human costs of trial and error learning in society's handling of new technologies, and to do so by anticipating potential impacts and feeding these insights back into decision-making, and into actors’ strategies’ (Schot and Rip 1997); and

• Establishing research practices aimed at contributing specific knowledge to the decision-making processes mentioned above. Accordingly, TA cannot rely exclusively on existing knowledge provided by the various academic disciplines; instead, TA must investigate the combination of ecological, social, and economic conditions; assess such knowledge under the perspective of sustainable and environmentally sound development; and present it in ‘digestible’ forms for decision-making (Bechmann et al. 2007). Therefore, TA must pursue a transdisciplinary approach in research which at the same time has to be interdisciplinary and integrative; produce additional knowledge that is otherwise unavailable from disciplinary research; and process, organize, and present this knowledge differently in order for it to be useful for a variety of purposes (orientation, action, decision-making, etc.).

It should be obvious that these developments mutually influence each other. Experiences and experiments with various incarnations of TA have, inter alia, encouraged new forms of its institutionalization, contributed to improvements in research and advisory practices, opened new perspectives on the governance of technology and innovation, informed neighboring academic activities, and been fed back into the TA community itself.

Enactors, selectors, and TA

Over the last few decades, TA in a way became an umbrella term for a broader social-intellectual movement, aiming at understanding and anticipating current and future sociotechnical change, investigating its impact on society, and developing instruments to govern these interactions so as to help shape new and emerging technologies. In attempting to do this, TA is confronted with the challenges of creating ‘anticipatory knowledge’ and reflecting on its production, dissemination, usage, and quality.

Anticipatory knowledge can be produced, presented, and used in numerous forms: computer models, scenarios, forecasts, outcomes of foresight exercises with various participant groups (experts, stakeholders, citizens, etc.), and narratives about possible (or ‘likely’) socio-technological futures that were created in different cultural environments (e.g. innovators’ promises or expectations, science fiction literature or future studies) are some of the better-known examples.

The epistemic status of this knowledge is controversial. On one hand, this knowledge is perceived by many observers as an inextricable mixture of fact, analogy, surmise, speculation, and outright fantasy – it is even contested whether this information should or may be considered as ‘knowledge’ in the first place (Nordmann 2007). On the other hand, governments, parliaments, civil society organizations, and the general public find anticipatory knowledge to be indispensable for many purposes, such as providing guidance and support for political action, coordinating innovation actors across different societal spheres, and building trust in the outcomes and the quality of decision-making processes. Because of its prominence in modern societies and its role in dynamic processes of world-making (Nelson, Geltzer, and Hilgartner 2008), anticipatory knowledge and its role for sociotechnical change became a matter of increased analytic attention, especially over the last two decades (see, e.g. van Lente and Rip 1998; Brown, Rappert, and Webster 2000; Sarewitz, Pielke, and Byerly 2000; Brown and Michael 2003; Borup et al. 2006).

A number of these authors and others have convincingly shown that anticipatory knowledge may be not only descriptive, but also performative: Anticipations, expectations, and visions of sociotechnical futures may change the behavior of innovation actors (in the broadest sense) and hence the future itself. Beyond that, some producers of anticipatory knowledge not only seek to represent ‘the future’ (or a possible future), they actively try to shape it (Wynne 2006; Pollock and Williams 2010). Practitioners of constructive TA (CTA), real-time TA (RTTA), and RRI are representatives of this inclusive approach. They seek not only to observe technology development, but also to inform and influence the processes of negotiation and deliberation among different stakeholders in research and technological development (RTD).

By way illustration, we present these processes using the groundbreaking model proposed by Garud and Ahlstrom (1997). They start with the hypothesis that the extent to which certain frames of reference influence the direction of technological development depends upon the degree to which innovation actors are involved in this process, distinguishing between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. Insiders are innovation actors who are ‘directly associated with the development of technologies’, outsiders are those who ‘evaluate, sponsor and regulate technologies without directly engaging in their development’ (Garud and Ahlstrom 1997, 28). Their positions within the process create different roles – and different futures, that is, different imaginations of possible futures.

Insider approaches generate a phenomenon that Garud and Ahlstrom describe as ‘enactment cycles’: the scenario thinking of insiders implies a projection of an end state (a ‘technological promise’) that leads to an identification of the specific steps required to accomplish it. In other words – insiders (or ‘enactors’) construct rather narrow scenarios of progress and achievement that tend to over-emphasize positive aspects while downplaying or ignoring negative aspects and roadblocks. By contrast, outsiders are more likely to pursue ‘selection cycles’: their institutional roles require them to develop criteria against which all comparable technological approaches can be evaluated, and to embed these approaches in a broader view of the world, also considering completely different technical as well as non-technical alternatives. Outsiders thus become ‘comparative selectors’. Rip (2006) and Rip and Kulve (2008) have proposed distinguishing between professional comparative selectors (such as funding organizations or regulatory agencies), which use (more or less elaborated) methods to compare a proposed option with alternatives, and amateur comparative selectors (such as citizens or other civil society organizations (e.g. consumer organizations), the latter of which turn increasingly professional), which can range more freely because they are not tied to certain methods and other formal configurations.

Enactors interact with comparative selectors. They may do this in formal settings, for example, when contributing to national RTD strategy development processes, applying for project funding, or seeking regulatory approval. It may also happen informally, for instance in science communication, marketing, or one of the currently popular dialogue exercises. Some of the interactions are structural, others can be tied to events. Garud and Ahlstrom label constellations in which enactment cycles and comparative selection cycles interfere with one another ‘bridging events’ (Garud and Ahlstrom 1997). These happen as a matter of course but can also be intentionally orchestrated. The model described so far can be considered the classic enactor–selector game.

Classic TA concepts have mainly limited themselves to providing (science-based) information to policy-makers. This information was used to improve the knowledge-base for professional comparative selectors. With regard to the enactor–selector game, classic TA institutions remained rather passive and aloof. Modern TA concepts add additional complexity to this model – its organizations aim at playing a more active role in stakeholder discussions or societal debates about future technologies already in early stages of their development. CTA is probably the most well-known and widespread among these approaches that engage in early stages of development processes. These approaches do this through a number of channels, for example, by producing anticipatory knowledge and communicating it actively to stakeholders, media and society at large, by developing and organizing ‘bridging events’ between selectors and enactors, and by testing and implementing approaches of ‘socio-technical integration research’ (Fisher et al. 2015). Such interactions are examples of arenas where futures are exchanged – and changed. They can have an impact on selection decisions and may lead to variations in the design of a technology. They may change the ‘futures’ of the involved actors as well as ‘the future’. In these constellations, TA practitioners actively enter the respective enactor–selector game. They become – as producers or providers of anticipatory knowledge as well as builders of arenas – players in these games. Thus, whether directly or tacitly, they participate and in doing so influence, change, and diversify the games. As mentioned above, modern TA approaches, particularly practices like CTA and RTTA, aim for this kind of participation and lead to a further expansion of the actors set in the enactor–selector game. RRI works similarly to these modes of action: it can be described as a collective endeavor that intrinsically calls for intervention (Grunwald 2011; Owen et al. 2013).

Eclectic, random, intuitive – historical expertise in current TA practices and RRI

Brown and Michael (2003, 5) explore some of the questions and analytical complexities that are buried within the notion of future-oriented knowledge. They observe that

Futures, like time itself and many other temporal abstractions, present acute analytical difficulties when we try to separate out the many varied meanings in play. The present both creates a demand for future and past engagement whilst being only available to us imaginatively through histories and projections.

Pasts and futures are constantly created and recreated in the present (Adam 1990). Pasts and their representations play an important role for creating current representations of futures. As shown above, understanding futures created by others and creating future-oriented knowledge for others is an important part of TA practice. Therefore, one might be surprised by our claim that there is much ado about futures in current TA practices (and reflections about them), but very little consideration about the role and the importance of ‘the past’ as such in creating them.

One of the few exceptions can be found in a paper by Guston and Sarewitz (2002) which states that drawing on analogies and taking past examples into account can be beneficial for TA practice. They recognized that the ‘[k]ey to the value of this activity is the capacity to identify appropriate analogous cases’ (Guston and Sarewitz 2002, 101). Their approach of a RTTA is meant to integrate ‘retrospective (historical) as well as prospective (scenario) analysis, attempting to situate the innovation of concern in a historical context that will render it more amenable to understanding and, if necessary, to modification’ (98). Acknowledging David Guston’s role in the early development of RRI, bridging TA, and anticipatory governance (Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012), his and Sarewitz’ approach can be understood as one of the conceptual predecessors (or even foundation blocks) of RRI. Their turn to historical analysis can thus be seen as relevant advice for RRI.

Other scholars have suggested bringing together elements of the sociology of expectations, modern approaches of TA and RRI, and historical thinking. Brown and Michael (2003, 4), for example, have proposed to ‘compare real-time current expectations with memories of former expectations’ and therefore assess what we will call (in Oakeshott’s terms) ‘practical pasts’. Referencing Deuten and Rip (2000), they point out that the memories in use often neglect the historical context and contingencies of the original events. To this and other approaches, Carolyn Marvin’s seminal When Old Technologies were New (1988) can be cited as a practical example of the use of history.

However, calls for an historical approach in the production of anticipatory knowledge have seldom been put into practice.¹ One reason for this seems to be that TA practitioners are unaware of the historicity of their topic (i.e. that it has an important and constitutive past). Unlike many works of STS scholarship, TA studies more often than not refer to an historical perspective – if at all – only indirectly or tacitly. In the rare cases they do so, they mostly attempt to substantiate their results with cursory extrapolations, projections of past events into the future, or the use of (historical) analogies or metaphors – which, ironically, many historians are very skeptical of. Deeper insights into the past are attained only on very few occasions – and if so, their take on it is mostly random and intuitive. Certainly, the many approaches to writing and representing history, which we discuss later, make it difficult for a TA practitioner to choose. In the busy practice of TA, researchers all too frequently lack time and opportunities to consult multiple historical works and take different methodological approaches to history into consideration. Their choice will be, in a sense has to be, an eclectic one. Before we discuss what history as an academic endeavor has to offer for TA and how TA could benefit from historical insights, we identify some of the challenges that TA practitioners who are aware of the historicity of their research topic face when exploring the potential of historical knowledge for their practice.

TA practitioners are used to including knowledge from different fields in their daily work; they are used to familiarizing themselves with subjects they were not trained in. Mastering this task is constitutive for TA practice; nevertheless it is a challenge, and TA institutions are well advised to assemble a wide diversity of disciplines and skills. Particularly in fields and disciplines that are close to TA practices and whose methods are commonly used, for example the social sciences, crossing the disciplinary borders is a habitual exercise. Crossing disciplinary boundaries that are less common presents more of a challenge. This is the case for history in TA.

The landscape of literature and other material on the past is overwhelmingly broad and disparate. The lack of historians in TA becomes particularly apparent here. If writings on history are taken into account by TA practitioners, their inclusion and uptake is mostly eclectic, random, and intuitive. It might not be astonishing then, that the literature they refer to is not what a trained and established history scholar would advise. (We discuss why this can be problematic in the next section.) Even academically trained historians sometimes lose sight of the wider field of their study and the broad variety of relevant publications. In the sphere of academic writings on history alone, there is a wide range of quality, styles, approaches, and schools. Additionally, beyond academic approaches to history, there are many other, different kinds of historical representation – and in TA practices all of them are potentially relevant. The status and nature of knowledge provided in these different kinds of literatures on the past can vary broadly. While some academic approaches fulfill (at least generally) the requirements of academic standards, more popular efforts often do not. The further discussion in this paper focuses on the former, but the latter can be an interesting part of TA practices in their own right. Popular history stories may become part of the wider societal narratives about the prerequisites and the course of technological change, influence expectation statements or innovations strategies, especially those of enactors, and hence become performative – a process that has to be understood by TA practitioners as well.

Historians are by far not the only scholars who write history. Other disciplines, mostly in the vicinity of the humanities, have stakes in this enterprise and regularly write about the past. Prominent here are the social sciences and business school approaches that work with historical knowledge. Given the disciplinary proximity to some TA constituting subjects, TA practitioners are likely to access these kinds of writings. These authors tend to investigate their topics with the accuracy of academic scholarship and in most cases follow academic standards of traceability and intersubjectivity. Nonetheless, they often run the risk of producing or perpetuating ‘myths’ (here meant as stories with uncertain validity) by the application of today’s reality and circumstances of life to the past; not taking into account that ‘past and present are, by definition, different worlds’ (Tosh 2008, 62). Evaluating the historical integrity of these kinds of writing is difficult – particularly for lay people, which TA practitioners have to be seen as in this case.

Other ‘fast and easy’ sources of information on history are popular-science history books, lay history literature, and quick Internet searches. The epistemic status of these sources is more often than not problematic; for instance, academic accuracy is not their main focus, and is sometimes not aspired to at all. The same applies to history books of ‘internalist’ authors, for example authors from science or engineering writing on history of technology topics, although the quality of these sources can vary considerably, ranging from lay writings to nearly professional history books. Mundane representations of history that appear in daily life, such as memorial days and ‘histotainment’ – that is, infotainment on historical topics, especially on television – share this poor epistemic status for the most part. It might, thus, be advisable for TA practitioners to be aware of this and think carefully about which resources to choose.

Apparently, working with insights on the past is difficult and presents quite a number of pitfalls. To clarify why, despite all these impediments, it is still worthwhile to take on a historical perspective, we explicate in the following section which concepts of history may be suitable for TA practice – and what, in our view, history actually is.

What is history?

Everyone has at least a superficial conception of what history is. The term itself, however, is already ambiguous as it refers to different meanings. It equally denotes history as past events and actions (res gestae), that is, the objects of historical study, as well as the study of the past that ends in a narrative process of telling a history (historia rerum gestarum). It is important to note here – although practitioners from the TA field will not find this surprisingly or are already aware of it anyway – that all discourses about history (i.e. narrative representations of the past) are necessarily (re-)constructed. Even though academic historical knowledge (historical past) has a well-founded epistemic status, it does not produce ‘universal truth’. It rather reconstructs multiple pasts, interpretations, and narratives of what happened in the past. Of course, in doing so, historians refer to facts and the sources have the power of veto (Rüsen 2013).

As we find academic historical knowledge particularly suitable for the undertakings of TA practitioners, we show how historians work to achieve their findings and what makes their approach valuable. While in most cases criticizing the epistemic status of historical scholarship helps produce the validity and accuracy of its findings and is rather part of rhetorical cut and thrust among academic rivaling communities, such questions take on substantial significance in interdisciplinary settings. Two – somewhat related – questions have been much debated throughout the twentieth century, not only amongst historians: Can history (meaning: the historian) be objective? And, is history an academic discipline at all, is it science, art, or something in between? Although the debate has never fully been closed, a silence has fallen on the topic over the past decade or so (for a short introduction to this debate, see Rublack 2012). Although there will never be full agreement, there is a certain consensus amongst most historians on what constitutes their work. The following qualities characterize academic history in its current self-understanding and the historical knowledge it produces:

• Historical knowledge is validated by the methodical, strictly regulated path of its obtainment. It has to be empirically grounded, formulated according to technical terms and recognized concepts, and argumentatively presented.

• Historical knowledge has to be plausible both in its empirical (critical assessment of sources, reference to auxiliary sciences) and theoretical (consistent interpretation) respects, and it has to be clear about its normative biases (critical reflection of situatedness).

• It has to be of relevance for life through a coherent narration (Rüsen 2013, 59). It is this narrative practice that is at the core of its methodology and that in large part constitutes its status as academic discipline and at the same time makes it special – but not less valid – in comparison with other academic disciplines.

Representations of history that do not follow this academic rigor have afore been described in their numerous varieties, from ‘internalist’ to ‘histotainment’, and tend to be poor in epistemic status. Nevertheless, this kind of regarding the past can have observable effects. Michael Oakeshott, a twentieth-century English philosopher writing on philosophy of history, calls this kind of retrospection ‘practical past’ as it ‘is a “living” past which may be said to “teach by example”, or more generally to afford us a current vocabulary of self-understanding and self-expression. […] It is this past which is evoked in nostalgia … ’ (Oakeshott 1999, 21). He distinguishes ‘practical past’ from ‘historical past’ which ‘is, then, the conclusion of a critical enquiry of a certain sort; it is to be found nowhere but in a history book’ (36).

Practical pasts accompany us and help us constitute our identities. In our everyday lives, explanations of political or societal events that need contextualization for their understanding, very often draw on the past – which does not necessarily mean that they are historically correct or even exhaustive in their representation.

Significantly, many scientists and engineers, for example, have developed their own mental maps of processes and circumstance in the history of science, technology, and innovation based on practical pasts. Descriptions of these developments may have taken the form of folk theories about the past – a phenomenon from which TA practitioners and the other actors in selector–enactor games are also not spared. Arie Rip, who describes folk theories as ‘a form of expectations, based in some experience, but not necessarily systematically checked’ (Rip 2006, 349), has impressively shown how folk theories have influenced discourses on emerging technologies as well as their development. His findings go well together with Oakeshott’s concept of practical pasts. We will come back to both later when analyzing how TA could benefit from history and where the place for their cooperation could be.

In our view, the academic historical approach that matches best the needs of TA is history of technology. This appears to be obvious, but one should note that this is itself a broad field with a number of approaches and traditions. Academic history in general has, over the last few decades, taken up all the various (cultural, linguistic, spatial, sociological, etc.) ‘turns’ that occurred also in other fields (cf. Suny 2002). The insights gained from these ‘turns’ and the variants of historical approaches that were developed throughout the twentieth century are now cumulating in a new, modern form of cultural history that is described by Burke (2004) and Mandler (2004). The kind of history of technology we are referring to here is very close to this new and modern form of cultural history (Edgerton 2008, 2010; Heßler 2012). It has a certain focus on technology but at the same time the contextualization of what it describes is essential. This modern way of historiography is very open to methods and concepts from other disciplines or fields of study. In particular, the social sciences have had significant influence. Ideas from STS are widely taken up as well (very important in this respect was the work on the social construction of technology by Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch [2012]) and can serve as a link to TA. Modern history of technology is thus promising not only concerning the turns it has taken but also because its openness to methods and concepts make it very adaptable to TA practice.

Finding a place for knowledge of the past in the practice of TA

The possible use of historical knowledge in the construction of analogies between future outcomes of current technological change and lessons from past innovation processes, as Guston and Sarewitz (2002) describe it, has already been mentioned. Analogies play a major role in reasoning; not only in our everyday life but also in scientific argumentation. For Chernilo (2015, 327–328), analogies

point to the direct and explicit possibility of extrapolating knowledge from one ambit onto a different one in terms of logical comparisons, a sense of proportion, and corresponding features; […] [A]nalogies are welcome and explicitly pursued in scientific work because they allow for analytical precision […].

In this context, historical analogies (meaning here analogies of past events) are also used. We already noted this for the rare cases in which TA practitioners draw on history. Similar to folk theories, though, the epistemic status of analogies is disputable. In fact, the use and possible quality of analogies is highly controversial among historians and theorists of history. Core to the refusal of analogies is the generally accepted fact of historical contingency, that is, that the past does not repeat itself. Whether contingency makes analogical reasoning completely impossible or only complicated is highly controversial among historians. As we cannot explicate this debate in the theory of history in full detail here, we refer instead to the respective literature (seminal to the debate about ‘learning from history’ is Koselleck’s (2004) treatise on the historia magistra vitae topos; more general treatments on contingency, analogies, and applications of history can be found in Rüsen [2013] and, classical, Carr [1961]).

In light of this controversy, historical analogies should be used with caution. A benefit TA can derive from historians’ work therefore concerns the informed use of analogies. Due to the above described sophisticated method, historians recognize the difficulties of drawing analogies and are capable of dealing with them. In his landmark book Why History Matters, the British historian Tosh (2008), who calls for more public engagement among historians and provides guidance for doing so, takes up the difficulties that come along with analogical reasoning:

The problem is that the most popular analogies are at odds with the principles of historical reasoning. […] Invoking our predecessors’ experience as a guide to conduct all too easily overlooks the difference between their circumstances and ours; […] For these reasons, analogy is routinely condemned as profoundly unhistorical by the gate-keepers of the academy. (61)

Although Tosh admits that the handling of analogies can be complicated, he comes to the conclusion that, ‘contrary to most statements on the subject, historical analogy can be an aid to critical thinking. But first, due acknowledgement must be made to the pitfalls of simplistic analogical reasoning’ (2008, 62). Following Tosh, one could see it as the historian’s mission to reveal improper analogies ‘that are based on bad history’ (77) and articulate analogies that can be useful for understanding the present. ‘Good’ analogies do not serve as a blueprint for our today’s problems. They can help us, however, to recognize ‘what is distinctive about the present’ (67). It is this distinctiveness about the present that Grunwald (2013) addresses in his approach of ‘hermeneutic TA’ when he demands that we ‘learn something about ourselves:’ as ‘the divergence of futures mirrors the differences of contemporary positions and reflects today’s pluralism […], uncovering these sources of the diverging futures could tell us something about ourselves and today’s society’ (7).

In the criticism of historical analogies, it is often overlooked that this kind of ‘learning from history’ is an exercise in transfer and not fulfilled by merely copying the results of our predecessors. Therefore it is important to be vigilant in order to avoid simplistic analogies and only draw them from a base of serious, academic history writing. For the practice of TA, it might therefore be advisable to use analogies constructed by academic historians, acknowledging their expertise on the field. It shall be noted here that despite many criticism against (simplified) analogical reasoning many historians are open minded to ‘practical use’ of the past. Recent years have seen a sheer flood of publications, monographs, articles, whole special issues, and even conferences on this topic. To mention only a handful of examples, we refer to the conference of the International Network for Theory of History (INTH) in 2016 on ‘The Practical Past: on the advantages and disadvantages of history for life’ and a series of articles surrounding it, particularly in Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice that also brought a special issue, edited and introduced by Pihlainen (2016) under the title, ‘Futures for the Past’. Sörlin’s (2011) article on ‘The Contemporaneity of Environmental History: Negotiating Scholarship, Useful History, and the New Human Condition’ could be mentioned here as representative of a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary History under the title, ‘At the Crossroads of Past and Present – “Contemporary” History and the Historical Discipline’. Writing from a history of technology (and mobility) position, Lundin (2016) calls for ‘The Historian as Expert’ in his move towards ‘Making History Matter’. And in his Da Vinci Medal Address, Schot (2016) calls for the engagement of historians with the grand challenges facing our time. Besides these briefer contributions, various monographs treat the practical potential of historic inquiry. While Hayden White’s The Practical Past (2014) draws on Michael Oakeshott’s above-mentioned concept and strives for higher theoretical spheres, Kalela (2012) describes the historical practice in his The Historian and the Uses of the Past. The wealth of contributions reveals on the one hand the topicality of the discussion, but also, on the other hand, how intense academic reflection on this topic still is – and how great the need to debate these developments.

As historians look more and more for connection points outside their academic seclusion, TA can benefit from this development if it opens itself to take the past into more serious consideration. More often than TA practitioners might expect, their research object bears a history that is worthy of being uncovered. For instance, it might be valuable for a TA study on electric mobility to consult Gijs Mom’s book on The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age (2004). Equally, a history of nuclear industry (Radkau 1983) is likely to provide interesting insights for TA studies dealing with nuclear waste management. And for policy advice on domestic robot technology, Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s More Work for Mother (1983) still impressively reveals the ‘ironies of household technology’. Informed through history, TA practitioners will get a different view on what is happening in the above-mentioned enactor–selector games around new technologies. Academic history can help to reveal folk theories of all involved parties (including TA practitioners themselves) and show where these kinds of practical pasts come into play and how they relate to historical pasts. Similar to the producers of anticipatory knowledge who build different scenarios of future possibilities, historians reconstruct possible ways of how the past could have looked. Folk theories and myths about the past may be challenged by this practice, especially if they do not hold up to scrutiny. Recognizing the distinction between the practical past and the historical past, TA can identify which dimensions of historical reasoning are referred to by various agents in an enactor–selector constellation they observe or design. It also can help prevent actors from being fooled by popular misconceptions of past configurations and developments.

The list of benefits given here is not exhaustive. Not all aspects of TA to which history could contribute are noted here. In the following paragraphs, we describe one distinct constellation of how, where, when, and with whom history could fit in and become active in TA processes, using enactor–selector games as the example. Many other forms of collaboration are imaginable as well; their unfolding and explanation here would, however, go beyond the scope of this paper and will have to be discussed elsewhere.

As already mentioned, there are several means of bringing enactors, selectors, and representatives of TA and history together. We draw on the kind of enactor–selector game in which TA practitioners actively participate and accompany enactors and selectors through the negotiation of promises and requirements. In the dynamics of the promises–requirements cycle (van Lente and Rip 1998), the TA practitioner may play the role of a ‘mediator’ between enactors and selectors. These negotiations usually take place in a situation of tension between experiences and expectations. At this point, history and historical knowledge may come into play. Informed by an academic historian about the historicity of the negotiated subject and the myths, folk theories, and pasts in action, TA practitioners can assess the situation differently. They will not only become aware of the practical pasts of enactors and selectors but also have a chance to recognize their own limitations and cognitive biases. Besides that, they will have a better understanding of what the experiences and expectations they uncover refer to. In addition, TA practitioners can broaden their horizon about historical aspects and obtain a more comprehensive – and hopefully better reflected – view on the topics at stake. Engaging themselves in the enactor–selector game, they can point other actors to their newly achieved insights into the practical pasts in action. This will not necessarily change the game, but is likely to influence it.

For the case of nanotechnologies, Rip (2006) has shown how many folk theories are in play on the side of enactors. While the majority of them, such as the deficit model of public understanding, will be similar for other technologies, those that are based on dubious historical analogies and practical pasts may change from technology to technology. He assigns practitioners of RTTA and CTA the role of using their early interactions in enactor–selector games to enhance reflexivity concerning any folk theories. In order to do so, however, the practitioners need to be aware of such folk theories and where they come from. As the historical ones are likely to change from technology to technology, there is not a fixed set that they can learn; rather, they have to get in touch with history again and again. Only if they are aware of such folk theories themselves can they inform other actors in the enactor–selector game about them and, in doing so, help enhance reflexive awareness about them.

While Rip ends his explanation with this point, we propose to go beyond it. The actual question is: What happens if TA practitioners intervene with historical knowledge in an enactor–selector constellation that is peppered with folk theories and questionable analogies? The consequences of their ‘historical intervention’ may be ambiguous but we think it is very likely that it would make a difference. Or to approach the aforementioned question the other way around: What happens if there are no historically informed interventions by TA practitioners (or other mediating actors) in a similar constellation? Rip (2006, 351) describes this tellingly in the same paper. He shows how in the discourse among nanotechnologists, an oversimplified and improper history about the impasse that GMO (genetically modified organism) technologies had to face took effect. In his example, this historical folk theory achieved high impact in combination with another one about changing public expectations around technological development. The attempt to avoid such an impasse for the case of nanotechnology accordingly led to contradictory policies (e.g. Fisher and Mahajan 2006) that, on the one hand, called for ethical, legal, and societal aspects (ELSA) studies around nanotechnologies and, on the other, – here in combination with a third folk theory – to the identification of ‘outsiders’ as threatening opponents and the refusal to discuss possible risks.

Let us indulge in a little speculation: What would have happened if a historically informed TA practitioner identified and observed these folk theories in play and intervened early and effectively in the debate? From an analytical standpoint at least, folk theories can be easily dismantled with more profound knowledge of history (or, using terminology previously introduced, the historical past undermines the practical past). Thus, if such knowledge were more widely shared, we suggest it could disrupt or even bring the construct of interconnected folk theories to the point of collapse. While this scenario raises its own set of complex questions regarding the possibility of effectively designing and implementing such an intervention, and while we do not wish to suggest a ‘deficit model’ of historical knowledge that can simply be filled, our scenario does point to the potentially transformative role of more reflexively aware historical understanding. Similarly, other, more enduring folk theories are likely based on cultural perceptions and experiences, even if they do not directly recur to history. In these cases, a historically informed third party could also attempt to intervene and deconstruct such folk theories. Rip suggests replacing folk theories with better theories. In our example here, this would first mean disqualifying or at least problematizing the folk theories of selectors and then seeking to replace the underlying practical pasts with historical pasts and better theories about technological development, the capabilities of ‘the public’, and further relevant information. Insofar as, for example, TA practitioners are in a position to influence formal policy debates and decisions, it is conceivable that their expert statements and reports could in fact play such a role and that they might be able to at least draw critical attention to unwarranted and even misleading practical pasts. More broadly, and in line with the aspirations of RRI, if enactors and selectors share their conceptions of what is happening in the development process, this is likely to have a positive influence on the process and perhaps even the results of their negotiation process.

Conclusion

Does the mindful inclusion of selected results of historical research into TA or RRI processes make their outcomes any ‘better’? We cannot tell, at least not yet. What we do suggest, however, is that it has the potential to make them different. Different in a way that, we have reasons to believe, make this at least worth trying. Anticipatory knowledge, the knowledge about futures that TA develops and provides, is substantially based on analyzing, abstracting, and learning from past developments; discovering and checking similarities to current processes; attentively projecting these similarities onto current processes; and, finally, using this knowledge for drawing conclusions about possible futures. In this paper, we have mainly argued in favor of a more considered approach to history and historical scholarship from the perspective of TA; yet we also suggested that engaging with history is inscribed into the foundations of RRI as well – and worth equivalent consideration. What we argued for a certain constellation of actors in the enactor–selector game with history as an advising instance, namely, that although the challenges are great so are the potential opportunities, is applicable to other constellations as well. In order to subject our own intuitions to more systematic inquiry, we call for further debate on the why and how of historical collaborations with TA and RRI as well as for conducting interventions in an effort to generate examples of good practice. One of the aims of this paper was to generate awareness for the nexus between TA, vision assessment, and historical knowledge as well as its role in shaping (especially early) innovation processes. In addition, we sought to stimulate interest in the potential contributions of ‘history as an academic endeavor’ to TA and RRI, and finally to illustrate some of the associated opportunities.

In our experience, quite a few historians of technology, particularly those who are working closely with STS questions and ideas, are not only in a suitable position to contribute to such debates, but would be willing to collaborate on them. Accordingly, we recommend that TA and RRI practitioners invite and seek out such collaborations. To be sure, engaging with the broad and disparate field of history is by no means an easy undertaking. Nevertheless, we are confident that it would be a worthwhile journey.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the editor for their valuable comments. They helped to add additional perspectives and to strengthen a number of our arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Silke Zimmer-Merkle studied European Culture and History of Ideas in Karlsruhe and is doing her PhD project there at KIT’s Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS). Her research topic – a case study on the history of (automotive) driver assistance systems – is a first attempt to apply academic history for the purpose of technology assessment.

Torsten Fleischer is head of the research area ‘Innovation processes and impacts of technology’ at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He is interested in the interdependence between societal change and technological change in the areas of transportation, energy and materials technologies, methodological questions of technology assessment as well as in the governance of innovation processes. Over the years, he served as Project Manager for several TA studies for ITAS and the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB).

ORCID

Silke Zimmer-Merkle http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8642-9067

Notes

1. For instance, due to budget reductions, the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University was not able to include an historical approach in their implementation of RTTA (cf. Guston 2014). At KIT, on the other hand, after many years of discussion an Institute for Technology Futures has recently been established. A chair for the history of the techno-scientific civilization is part of this new academic institution which is expected to closely collaborate with the already existing Institute for Technology Assessment.