Contesting Co-Inquiry

Abstract

This article explores how social scientists, ethicists, and nanotechnologists construct research decisions together, while engaged in a Flemish participatory technology assessment on nanotechnologies. It finds that they routinely probe one another to make substantive contributions but avoid the argumentative initiative itself through various discursive strategies, such as reversing roles and delegating responsibility. It argues that these strategies emanate through the project’s methodology of co-inquiry, which depends on sharing and partnership, whereas some members resist participating on initiators’ terms. It links such “noncommunicative” action to unresolved disagreements between participants about project ends, conflicting approaches to decision making, and divergent appreciations of “uncertainty.”