Discussion on risk & Uncertainty
led by Esha Shah


Esha: The debate which has been usually more generic to the Indian context and perhaps these debates are also happening in different disciplinary contexts.  The risk and uncertainty debates are very much happening in European STS (Science and Technology Studies) and very interesting insights have been thrown and particularly these debates are addressing issues of governance of risks, as Brian raised in the morning, how do we need to move from governance of risk to governance of innovation and Andy, in fact in very detail sort of showed us in what way this policy framework and paradigms sort of  understands risk in different contexts and particularly ignores the way the science operates in more epistemological way particularly highlighting the issues of incertitude, incommensurability  ambiguity and other things that Andy had raised.  Now these are the issues which are very generic to the European debates whereas the colleagues from India have sort of discussed the risks and the way they are dealt with by the people, the way the risk is understood in everyday experiences the way they are coped, the way they are dealt with.  So this happens more, I would say in the politics of development and these debates happen in a different disciplinary context which is politics of development often these are also ethnographies of understanding everyday experiences of people’s lifecycle whether it is health sector, agriculture, as Revathy raised in her presentation.

 And what I struggle in my own personal sort of split personality of being part of the debates that happen in Europe and the debates that happen in India.  I haven’t really figured out where the common grounds are and where we can bring these debates together or  How sort of these debates, mutual engagement with these debates could probably open up different ways of looking at things in both the contexts. That’s something I would rather raise as a question rather than say something definite about it.  

There is this second and the last point which I want to also raise …that is also referring to my own work that understanding science as an epistemic practice and understanding science as a social practice and how these two aspects of understanding science also can throw very different kinds of issues and often they sort of create kind of spaces which I find it very difficult to engage with.  And that for instance in my own engagement with these farmers with BT cotton farmers in Gujarat, which I didn’t include in my presentation but there was extensive discussion about what they understand about science and the state because these are very closely inter-related in the case of India and what I saw is that when Andy throws all these big question marks about the objectivity of science and that is particularly being sort of very extensively dealt with in Science and Technology studies the way farmers perceive science is absolutely contradictory.  They in fact had this unshakable faith in science and when I try to throw some of these big question marks that science and technological studies have thrown by telling them that scientists themselves don’t know, that there are known unknowns that scientists don’t know whether by creating genetically modified organisms we are creating newer forms of viruses and newer forms of organisms and what is this happening to the environment.  There is no certainty about these types of issues.  Farmers were not ready to believe this, and most of them responded by saying that if they don’t know now, they will know at some point of time.  That means that there is an unshakable faith in Science as a practice.  The way in a certain social contact, in particular in India, Science is considered something inherently good and this also again contradicts with the kind of Science, the way it is understood in public domain in Europe where the public disaffection of science is a big question in Europe, in fact that has created a whole public policy driven by the risk perception.  I just want to raise these few contrasting issues also emerging from different disciplinary contexts, different geo-political contexts and that is where I would stop. Thank you.



Rao: I just want to make a few comments not so much on the specific papers that were presented, as much on the approach we have taken to the issue of knowledge debates. I am the last person who should be talking about to predominantly sociologists as to what Max Weber said about science as a vocation and politics as a vocation and the distinction between the two.  

I thought knowledge debates are about what is the meta-narrative in terms of which debates about knowledge, various kinds of knowledge systems can be carried out in a way in which they would give us a way of empowering people if that is the objective of that meta-narrative.  Substantive domains, the experiences of those substantive domains are important but they cannot lead to a meta-narrative. A meta framework  in terms of which knowledge debates should be conducted. For example, to my way of thinking, either talking about risks or talking about innovation in so far as the generic futures of any knowledge system whatever, what is required is to debate the methods by means of  which such  issues can be talked about in a way in which it will certainly form a rational discourse rather than speaking about in a way (for example we know all the way from Bacon that knowledge is not innocent of power, we also know from Foucault that knowledge engenders power and power enables knowledge generation).  

All these are virtually you know so to speak bio themes.  What is required I thought is a way in which if there is a community of people who are practicing certain kinds of material practices, certain kinds of cognitive dispositions what is it that would enable them to be able to debate with other set of people who are carrying out a different set of material practices, a different set of cognitive dispositions in a way that this discourse is rational.

If that is indeed the aim of this I thought (I have been participating in these kinds of debates for the last 40 years)  what is important is to be able to address the mode in which we should be able to engage with the other – “the generic other”-- the reason why I presented in the morning in terms of these debates can be carried out at the political level, ethical level, at the level of power knowledge relationship. What’s more important to my mind is what’s the methodology by means of which these discourses among various other systems can be carried out?  I must confess to you the feeling of weariness of not having seen an instance of that.

For example the central dogma of genetics is well known, it is known for example that this is a battle that Leotin and Stephen Jay Gold have been carrying out for last 20 years and one of them is dead now. It is known that bacteria if it is under a level of water it undergoes and becomes something else altogether although the genomic structure is the same and this is an argument which has been made in terms of  individual organisms and the mutual intimately coupled and therefore there is no way of making so called objective way of their entire genome project is flawed.  It is a kind of criticisn levied almost 15 years ago. So I thought what we should and particularly those of you who are sociologists should engage, to see what is the framework in which debates between various kinds of knowledge systems. Is there a method of framework in which this course can be carried out?

 What I tried to present this morning is at that level in terms of what is the methodology by means of which the knowledge is generated at the level of skills, at the level of signs, at the level of symbols. As embodied beings we have a perceptual apparatus, a sensory apparatus,  motor  functions. We act on the environment through our motor functions. The symnbols are the mechanisms by the means of which we generate knowledge. We try to correlate this -- that's in the level of signs. Now we have got more sophisticated systems of knowledge through a symbolic structure. The power of those symbolic structures is not only positive in certain respects but is also oppressive in certain other respects.  If that is the case what is the mechanism by means of which a discussion can go on to be able to adjust, evaluate, and assess various kinds of knowledge systems given their basic underlined premises. That is what I thought I should generally comment about. Thank you.

Andy: I had a question following Esha’s very interesting summary about the contrast between public attitudes to science in India and Europe. Although it is a very well established understanding in Europe in some quarters that there is widespread public disaffection with science,  there is a lot of work which shows that it is a much more complicated picture.  There are a lot of (what’s going on often is) qualified support for science. This  is interpreted as opposition because you can’t have a qualified support for science and in fact what is there is support, well qualified and also there is very strong support in areas like certain consumer products, ecological modernization.  So I just wonder then how complex and nuanced are the same attitudes, understanding in India, among Indian farmers. Is it such an unqualified,  unreservedly positive or are there actually political issues and issues about representation of how to articulate your views that are going on. I simply don’t know but I just wonder, are we sure it is unreservedly positive.

Esha: I must confess Andy that I don’t have an answer to that because compared with Europe I think ethnographies of how science is understood and perceived among general public is rather not that rich in Indian context.  Much of this work happens in the disciplinary space of politics of development or in sociology or economics or some other disciplines where science actually is not an important ingredient of all these things.

As such, in India the debates about issues such as large dams or GM or nuclear issues are highly dichotomized debates and these are not about the Science and Technology per se but about politics of development once again or different types of politics. Nuclear wars an issue about nationalism in a certain sense. So Science is not that much in the forefront and I won’t be able to say anything with authenticity.  I am sure everybody else will chip in, rather counter me. But I sort of gave an example from my own work on BT where I have kept understanding farmers’ perception of science on the forefront and there I found certain unqualified support to science - something considered as inherently good and that is because this is a group of farmer which has benefited in the last 100 years by the state support of science through Green Revolution, and even before that. Hence their interest has been taken care of and they don’t have reason to be skeptical about science.  So that is a very small sample to say anything authentic about India, which is a very diverse space in terms of making any statement on this issue.  But I’m sure other people have more to say.

Ramanjeneyula: Just on what Esha was saying about farmer’s perception of science. In Andhra Pradesh there was a study done by an anthropologist and it was also published “De-skilling of farmers”.  How modern science has deskilled the farmers. So in all these studies I feel the researcher’s perceptions are influencing the outcome more than what the farmer feels.  I can also share my experiences.  I have worked in institutions and with farmers. My understanding is Science is not objective. You take positions and from that position you try to push your ideas and then what mainstream thinks is often seen as a neutral thing and then all other views are taken as positions but what mainstream takes is also a position and that’s what is happening with the GM at the whole GM debate.

Whenever the science issues are bought up, people ask for data and what data?  Data as I understand what mainstream understands, but data as mainstream understands has to be produced by mainstream only.  What others produce is not accepted. So question is not about not having science. It’s having science technology debates brought in. For example if you look at in the last 3-4 years including Gujarat there are several reports about animal deaths happening, and animal abortions happening in Gujarat.  It has become a real serious issue in Gujarat. Skin allergies that have developed in farmers and yield reduction and even Indian Agricultural Research Institution has published a paper on that, yield reduction is happening but it is not accepted in the main stream even after the data is produced. So I feel science is no more a science today.  it has become a business. So old theories of understanding science and ethics have to change.

Shiv: I would argue the reverse. that sometimes we look at science differently. I will give you an example. We did a series of interviews in the Orissa cyclone and we asked them what caused the cyclone? A lot of villagers came up and said “paap” which means “sin”. Then we asked them what do you think should be done about it.  They said the scientists should be given radars to detect it. There is this mixing which creates possibility of understanding power and epistemology differently. Let me just take another example of BT. Esha has done a little but I spent a lot of time talking to politicians and journalists after the BT cotton debate. It’s very interesting - their answers - you go to all the local journalists, they say BT!!!  It’s a dumb, loaded debate.

Next step you go to  Nana Chudasama,  who is the  head of the Agricultural Department. He said Narmada plus BT will make Gujarat the first state in the country. All of them are using it in different ways and unfortunately we are not constructing these varieties of stories about how power maintains itself.  and because of this paucity of stories we land up either with an idea of  conspiracy or kind of positive factor.  I think the story is much more complex and if you don’t capture the complexity we are going to get caught in these narratives.  It’s not the question that science has been exhausted I think the scientific metaphor has been taken over by different imaginations which are telling the stories.

..(tape change).. Not just the gene, but unless we look at the relation between body,  soil, seed and the body politic, narrative, we are looking for can’t be constructed. It is a failure if story telling. And don’t blame the people. They are constructing stories beautifully and differently.

Brian: I was just responding to the questions about Esha’s observation about the farmers’ characterizations of their faith in science. Actually this is a very recognizable kind of response  in Europe certainly as well and it is also a very  recognizable response from scientists to their own situations in respect  to risk assessment and  prediction etc. which they have been forced effectively,through persistent public controversy through public embarrassment, and so on, to recognize uncertainty.

But interestingly uncertainty only as far as Andy’s characterization of uncertainty --known  uncertainties, deterministic uncertainties in precisely the sense you described your Gujarat farmers, which is “yes we may not know every thing today but tomorrow we will”. It is always done tomorrow and that allows precisely a deterministic characterization of the trajectories that we are on.  It's all safe because tomorrow we will know and we will be able to prove it. Never today and that kind of discourse certainly on the part of  the scientist ( and I cannot speak about Gujarat farmers,) is basically a way of fending off indeterminacy,  non-control, surprise. Everything is outside the realm of control. And  in that sense,   is a threat, potentially a threat. It is basically pushed away and deleted by that kind of characterization of uncertainty and I don’t see as yet, and I still feel very pessimistic about the prospects, of actually pushing beyond that kind of rationalization. It just seems to be so  incredibly deeply entrenched  and I  guess I see that as a major challenge for STS and indeed for STS in conjunction with  civil society organizations for instance. Because the only thing that has actually brought about any change in the European context , has actually been because of public embarrassment and the force of public opposition which is a fragile force. It is a very fragile force, but at least  it has actually managed to embarrass the powerful institutions sufficiently to open the doors slightly.  Then you can see behind that continual processes of re-closures of further doors down the corridor.

  Sridhar: I have been engaging with science studies, with the State and science aspects.  In Social Science, and also at present, we are engaging only with the effects of Science. Further, we too are still following the western method - the scientific method that is if you are have those characteristics only you are calling it as Science and not treating the non-western Sciences as Sciences. We are also ended up in the discussing the effects of it. Somebody spoke about recuperating resistance against globalization or against colonialism. But what is happening is that State apparatus and the powers of science and state have been endured over the period keeping transformative aspects aside. We dont engage with how the state and science are getting its authenticity or how it is being legitimized . We have only ended up discussing the effects of it. But how the state apparatus, the science apparatus is being endured in the knowledge domain and power domain is not being examined. In this sense, we are only in the receiving end. We are not looking at how aspects of it has been operated. So innovation in a sense is providing confidence to the state and science over a period of time. Let me take an example in the Indian context. We followed British Science in Agriculture. Till the Mendelian laws were invented, there were continuous reports and submissions of  failure. With the introduction of Mendelian Laws and its duplication, we have seen more hybrid science. We saw various science stations that mushroomed during the Green Revolution period and now in Bio-technology science. Throughout this time the state and science power has been endured and we have not reflected on that aspect I think.

Andy Stirling: Sorry I want take much time, a quick one following up on that excellent point about you mentioned Western Science in respect to risk. Risk assessment is a cheap point really but there’s a sense in which the dominance of quantitative risk assessment is actually a legacy of Indian epistemic hegemony and antiquity because… if open up the box of orthodox risk assessment and trace it back to the invention of zero, without the invention of zero there would be none and invention of zero is something Europe owes to India so don’t blame it on us.


Shiv: Can I respond to you? Time vs. effort if you look at the interviews in India, time was spatialized. It is very interesting. If you talk to all of the Ministers of Gujarat after the BT Cotton affair they said “risk is a security problem”. Security is a State problem. So it’s very interesting how this is constructed. It’s not just a deferring. Time gets spatialzed and responsibilities get distributed. I think the narratives are multiple. Though you are right about civil society now having to engage with some of these questions. But we have to engage with not one anthropology but a variety of anthropologies, each of which demands a different kind of politics.


Participant: Talking about BT Cotton and risk, what I feel is that the risk is segmental in nature that means it is not homogeneous. The thing is I have come from Guntur district where cotton is one of the best crops in this district. What I feel is that most of farmers opt for cotton cultivation because they have seen that cotton is the best investment method, what I feel is the nature of risk is also different from farmer to farmer, that might be one of the reasons for why people are ready to take the risk.

Chairperson summing up:

Andy paper has spoken about  the risk analysis framework that institutions use. He has pleaded for broadening the scope of analysis. The second paper what  we have seen is Dr.Purendra Prasad trying to say perhaps how dominant health care discourse interacts with other health discourses specially of the  underprivileged  sections, underprivileged regions and so on. And in the third paper Naveen was presenting the Principle of non-discrimination.

Non discrimination in principle is 'all countries are equal'. But they are not in reality. So I think this is where the politics enters in the whole international trade. Rich countries can always say that in a case of dispute or conflict their national law will hold-- not the WTO law.  That’s been going on and we should keep that in mind. The other paper we have is by Revathy especially on risk analysis among the farmers of Andhra Pradesh and she divided risk into two categories one is co-variant (normal) risk and other idiosyncratic risk. Now I think where politics enters in risk analysis is, I think we should keep these two points in mind when we talk of risk (there are two elements in the whole analysis): one is what is the acceptable level of risk (who decides this acceptable level?) and the time frame for which a product or particular risk is  safe. So when you talk about judgments over the acceptable level of risk, you see several competing, sometimes conflicting values coming into play. So this is where politics enters, this is where political institutions define risk on the basis of certain kind of value framework.

Let me give you an example, some time back you all know that there was Chernobyl disaster.  Nuclear radiation traveled to north Europe and contaminated all the milk products like butter and cheese. And they decided to export these products to poor countries which they themselves didn’t want to consume but they said poor people could consume because they have more tolerance to risk. So this is how politics plays on the whole risk judgment , over acceptable levels of risk and this is where we should really intervene and say what values what factors must be factored into risk analysis basically taking up the factors that the communities feel are important.

The second is when you talk of risk it is not only…for example Revathy was talking about idiosyncratic risk. But see it is not that idiosyncratic for an individual , or the individual effect of risk,  because the risk gets socially amplified. I am sure the literature is there to suggest that there is social amplification of risk. So if a farmer commits suicide he leaves his family in debt, destitution, poverty. I think this is an extremely important factor that we should keep in mind when we talk of risk. I thank you all the participants and the presenters.