This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Walmsley, H. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Biobanking, public consultation, and the discursive logics of deliberation: Five lessons from British Columbia

W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: walmsleh{at}interchange.ubc.ca.

	Abstract

Genomics-related "deliberative" public consultations are all the rage. Drawing from theories of deliberative democracy, run by social scientists, governments and non-profit organizations globally, these events can produce valuable insights and governance solutions. There is a danger, however, of "deliberation" being viewed by its new practitioners as a homogenous "tool" due to a marked lack of analysis of the discursive processes at play. This paper addresses this gap, employing the discourse theory of Laclau to analyze small and large group deliberation at a public consultation on biobanking in British Columbia (BC), Canada, during 2007. Ethnographic and transcript analysis reveals small group deliberation to be a two-stage process, operating according to two different discursive logics. The paper concludes with five lessons for theorists and practitioners of deliberative public engagement with science.

First published on June 26, 2009
Public Understanding of Science 2009, doi:10.1177/0963662509335523


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?