Analysis and case studies explore the concept of vulnerability,
offering a novel and broader approach to understanding the risks
and benefits of science and technology. Novel technologies and
scientific advancements offer not only opportunities but risks.
Technological systems are vulnerable to human error and technical
malfunctioning that have far-reaching consequences: one flipped
switch can cause a cascading power failure across a networked
electric grid. Yet, once addressed, vulnerability accompanied by
coping mechanisms may yield a more flexible and resilient society.
This book investigates vulnerability, in both its negative and
positive aspects, in technological cultures. The contributors argue
that viewing risk in terms of vulnerability offers a novel approach
to understanding the risks and benefits of science and technology.
Such an approach broadens conventional risk analysis by connecting
to issues of justice, solidarity, and livelihood, and enabling
comparisons between the global north and south. The book explores
case studies that range from agricultural practices in India to
neonatal intensive care medicine in Western hospitals; these cases,
spanning the issues addressed in the book, illustrate what
vulnerability is and does. The book offers conceptual frameworks
for empirical description and analysis of vulnerability that
elucidate its ambiguity, context dependence, and constructed
nature. Finally, the book addresses the implications of these
analyses for the governance of vulnerability, proposing a more
reflexive way of dealing with vulnerability in technological
cultures. Contributors Marjolein van Asselt, Martin Boeckhout,
Wiebe Bijker, Tessa Fox, Stephen Healy, Anique Hommels, Sheila
Jasanoff, Jozef Keulartz, Jessica Mesman, Ger Palmboom, C. Shambu
Prasad, Julia Quartz, Johan M. Sanne, Maartje Schermer, Teesta
Setelvad, Esha Shah, Andy Stirling, Imrat Verhoeven, Esther
Versluis, Shiv Visvanathan, Gerard de Vries, Ger Wackers, Dick
Willems
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