10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17248
application/pdf
2038-3460
17248
1
en
Paolo Giardullo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Mercedes Martínez-Iglesias (ed.), Experts and Campaigners: scientific information and collective action in socio-ecological conflicts, Universitat de València, 2014
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
6
Book Reviews
2015-07-10
2023-06-17
2015-07-10
2023-07-31
164-166
TS
Paolo Giardullo
2015/07/10
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17248
164
Università di Urbino, Carlo Bo
2038-3460
1
en
166
Mercedes Martínez-Iglesias (ed.), Experts and Campaigners: scientific information and collective action in socio-ecological conflicts, Universitat de València, 2014
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17248/16111
6
Book Reviews                                                Tecnoscienza – 6 (1)

    Mercedes Martínez-Iglesias (ed.)
Experts and Campaigners: scientific information and collective action in
socio-ecological conflicts
València: Universitat de València, 2014, pp. 168

Paolo Giardullo Università di Urbino, Carlo Bo

    This edited book by Mercedes Martìnez-Iglesias, University of Valen-
cia, Spain, provides an opportunity to further explore the sociological
debate about environmental conflicts. This subject has already been de-
veloped in Italy by different scholars (among others, Pellizzoni 2011;
Bobbio 2010) focusing on the role of public participation in environmen-
tal decision making. The key feature of this research topic, as it has been
approached in the existing literature, consists of connecting environmen-
tal sociology with social studies of technoscience. The link is made by the
analysis of the use and/or endorsement of scientific knowledge as a stra-
tegic resource in a context of conflicts between groups. Conflicts may
arise about the building of new important and invasive infrastructures
(Lorenzet 2013; Bobbio 2010) or other environmental policy related in-
terventions such as, for instance, waste incineration and management
(Pellizzoni 2011; Bobbio 2002). As for these contributions, a specific rel-
evance has always been recognised for the role of expertise and attempts
to depoliticize the conflict as well as the production of new data by actors
who oppose such specific intervention.
     “Experts and campaigners” offers the opportunity to look at the
Spanish debate on socio-ecological conflicts, which seldom overcome
their geographical and linguistic borders. The book is written in English
with the intention of tearing down language barriers; a symptom of the
intention to move towards a more international debate.
     The essays collected in the book are the outcome of a workshop on
the results of a national research project about environmental conflicts in
Spain, which involved also researchers from France and Ecuador; there-
fore, this book actually offers to the reader a privileged point of view
about both the state of the art in the Spanish debate and about the empir-
ical results of specific case studies. The added value of this book is the
opportunity to resume in a single book the various theoretical perspec-
tives about environmental conflicts and studies about the role of expertise
and scientific knowledge: how it is embodied, endorsed and contested.
The role and influence of expertise in environmental conflicts is the fil
rouge that connects the nine chapters which compose the book.
    In the introduction Martìnez describes the overall framework which
the book applies; it is composed of three main areas: i) the reason why
collective action takes place in ecological conflicts; ii) the features and
role of scientific knowledge as a resource mobilised by the groups in-
volved in conflicts; iii) the basic reasons for a change in the status quo.
Book Review                                                               165
These areas touch upon different fields of inquiry (i.e. social movements,
social change and innovation) which traditionally have been analysed in
sociological terms. In this case, Martinez explicitly declares the aim of
putting scientific knowledge under the lens: as “a causal factor in social
conflicts” (p. 9), the experts’ discourse in conflicts, its effect in the dy-
namic of social movements and finally the general effect on social change.
The empirical contributions deal with conflicts related to the long-
distance power line between Spain and France (ch. 5) and the impact
analysis of conflicts about water governance on environmental policies in
Catalonia (ch. 6). Furthermore, interesting analytical hints have been pro-
vided by the study of scientific knowledge in configuring the environmen-
tal movement in Ecuador (ch. 4).
     These studies and perspective recall classic STS themes, namely the
scientific competence of non-experts (Irwin 2002; Wynne 1996) and the
study of public engagement and participation (Philips et al. 2012). This
opens the opportunity to apply the STS perspective with policy and gov-
ernance problems for the management of commons such as water, and
environmental planning. But what strikes the reader here is the concept
of science to which all the essays in “Experts and campaigners” (also im-
plicitly) refers to: the one proposed by Kennet Gould in the second chap-
ter. Gould considers the nature of science as dyadic, distinguishing be-
tween impact science and production science. In doing so, Gould adopts
Schnaiberg’s category of a ‘treadmill of production’ (Schnaiberg and
Gould 2000; Schnaiberg 1980) within which scientific activity is con-
ceived as a mere apparatus; such a neo-Marxist approach considers scien-
tific knowledge and its application as part of a productive capitalist
mechanism, separate from society and yet able to shape it directly. There-
fore, it is pretty obvious to find in the framework of this book the “causal
factor” of social conflict. This vision of science obliterates almost thirty
years of STS history, delivering a representation of “science” and “scien-
tific knowledge” as an external factor, a kind of independent variable
within a regression model.
     The most recent generation of environmental sociology (Mol 2010)
denies such a rigid approach, considering instead the crucial role of
streams materiality, objects, ideas and people that perpetually re-
configure each other; a perspective that, through Urry (2000) openly re-
calls John Law, Bruno Latour and Michel Callon.
     In concluding this review, “Experts and campaigners” offers us a two-
folded opportunity: to explore a debate which clearly is interested in
technoscientific issues applied to environmental conflicts and to explore
how such hybrid research topics may be addressed more directly by STS.
The book should be considered as a seminal attempt to analyse socio-
ecological conflicts starting from the key role of scientific knowledge. It is
certainly a fruitful approach but the way deterministic categories have
been uncritically applied demonstrates how long we still have to go for a
thorough integration of STS and environmental sociology.
Book Reviews                                                         Tecnoscienza – 6 (1)

References
Bobbio, L. (2002) Le arene deliberative, in “Rivista italiana di politiche pubbli-
      che”, 3, pp. 5-29.
Bobbio, L. (2010) Il paradosso dell’expertise nei conflitti ambientali, in “Tecnosci-
      enza Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies”, 1(1), pp. 81-91.
Irwin, A. (2002) Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable De-
       velopment, London, Routledge.
Lorenzet, A. (2013) Il lato controverso della tecnoscienza: nanotecnologie, bio-
       tecnologie e grandi opere nella sfera pubblica, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Mol, A. (2010) Social Theories of Environmental Reform: Towards a Third Genera-
       tion, in M. Gross and H. Heinrichs (eds.), Environmental Environmental
       Sociology: European Perspectives and Interdisciplinary Challenges, Dor-
       drecht, Springer, pp. 19-38.
Pellizzoni, L. (2011) Conflitti ambientali. Esperti, politica, istituzioni nelle contro-
        versie ecologiche, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Phillips, L., Carvalho, A., and Doyle, J. (eds.) (2012) Citizen voices: performing
        public participation in science and environment communication, Bristol, In-
        tellect Books.
Schnaiberg, A. (1980) The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity, New York, Ox-
       ford University Press.
Schnaiberg, A., & Gould, K. A. (2000) Environment and society: The enduring
       conflict, West Caldwell, NJ, Blackburn Press.
Urry, J. (2000) Sociology beyond societies: Mobilities for the 21st century, London,
        Routledge.
Wynne, B. (1996) A reflexive view of the expert-lay knowledge divide. Risk, envi-
      ronment and modernity: towards a new ecology, London, Sage.


                                        ***

   Christian Fuchs
Social Media. A Critical Introduction.
London: Sage, 2014, pp. 293

Cosimo Marco Scarcelli University of Padova

    Over the last few years there has been a slow but relevant reconcilia-
tion of two different approaches interested in media and technology: STS
and media studies. Both approaches ask similar questions concerning
media and Information Technologies; however, they are rarely discussed
together. Even though they can involve different empirical and conceptu-
