Callon - The Role of Lay People in the Production and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge

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DOI: 10.1177/097172189900400106 1999 4: 81Science Technology Society

Michel CallonScientific Knowledge

The Role of Lay People in the Production and Dissemination of

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The Role of Lay People in the Productionand Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge

MICHEL CALLON

Michel Callon is Professor, Ecole des Mines, and Director, Centre for Sociology andInnovation, 62 Boulevard Raspail, Paus 70005, France.

ONE OF THE most routine observations about modern life concernsthe rapid pace of technological change and the consequences of thisfor every aspect of society. Technoscience is pervasive; it invades dailylife and consequently becomes the subject of heated debates and con-troversies over diverse issues such as, biotechnology and concernsabout new reproductive technologies; advice on HIV/AIDS and safesex; information technology and its impact on jobs, skills and thequality of life; pollution and hazards; global environmental change;medical problems, childbirth and contraception; food safety andoccupational health, etc.The existence of these debates and the involvement in them of

numerous non-specialists are seen by some to be a glaring manifesta-tion of a crisis of confidence vis-~-vis science and technology. Authorssuch as U. Beck (1992) consider, for example, that the public-inother words the uninitiated-mistrust science and experts becausethe latter have proved to be incapable of foreseeing and controllingnegative consequences of science and technology. Whether they corn-cern the environment, public health or food safety, examples aboundof unexpected effects which endanger society as a whole. Contrary toofficial discourse, it may be that science is not a public good, butrather, a public bad. From that point of view, the crisis of confidencecould be explained very simply. It could be said that non-specialiststake a rational decision not to trust the researchers and engineerswho are unable to deal with the risks endangering society as a whole.


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Modern societies thus enter into the age of suspicion because thepolitical and economic institutions guaranteeing the validity andlegitimacy of science have been found to be in the wrong.

I am not sure that this interpretation is an accurate one. There is nodoubt that relations between specialists and lay people have beencalled into question, but what seems more problematic to me is thatthe issue is one of trust and of restoring that trust. In this paper, Iwould like to show that if indeed there is a crisis, it is that of the sepa-ration between science and society or, in other words, of the greatdivide between specialists and non-specialists. This boundary, patientlyerected over the centuries, exists not only in institutions but also asmodels for the actors. And it is this boundary that is wavering. Thegreat divide is challenged from all sides because it makes the con-struction of a collective in which technoscience can find its place, dif-ficult if not impossible.

In an attempt to understand this evolution and the crisis it spawns,I wish to focus on the diversity of possible modes of participation bynon-specialists in scientific and technological debates. For the sake ofclarity I shall distinguish three models. Each of them should be con-sidered both as a convenient way of making a confused and complexreality intelligible, and as a reference that actors use when they reflecton practical forms of technological democracy. From one model tothe next, what varies is the degree of involvement of lay people in theformulation and application of the knowledge and know-how onwhich decisions are based.

The Public Education Model (Ml)

It is to this, the simplest and most widespread model, although proba-bly the least suited to current challenges, that authors refer when theyspeak of the crisis of confidence in science and scientific institutions.It has the following characteristics:

1. Owing to its universality and objectivity, scientific knowledge isthe opposite of lay knowledge, which is shaped by beliefs andsuperstitions. The former can triumph only through the totaleradication of the latter. Not only must scientists teach the pub-lic everything, they also have nothing to learn from it.

2. Science is a separate institution governed by its own norms. Tosucceed in its knowledge enterprise and guard against all forms




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of contamination, it has to protect itself from lay knowledge andtake up position against common sense. The ties between scien-tists and the public are therefore indirect: they are the responsi-bility of the state, which represents citizens and their will, and ofthe firms which comply with consumers demands. Thus, sci-ence is autonomous but not independent; it is subjected to con-trol by the public authorities and adapts to suit the innovationprojects of firms. The public does not participate directly inknowledge production; it consists of individuals who, either ascitizens or as consumers, delegate the satisfaction of theirexpectations and demands to intermediaries who are in directcontact with scientists.

3. Technoscience, provided the public authorities and firms fulfiltheir role adequately and play by the rules of the game (compe-tition for legitimate political representation for the former, andcompetition on the economic markets for the latter), is a sourceof progress.

4. The crucial point in the model is the existence of trusting rela-tionships between lay people and scientists. As soon as mistrustsets in, all relationships, as well as the balance between them,are threatened. This mistrust may have multiple origins, forexample: scientists are unable to cope with the unintended re-sults which affect the public in unexpected ways, or scientistsare divided and reflect an image of an uncertain and controver-sial science. In its most extreme forms this mistrust may pro-duce violent acts of resistance. Whatever the case may be, thetrue cause is the illiteracy and ignorance of the public whichtransform it into an easy prey for beliefs and passions. The onlyantidote to the poison of mistrust is to intensify educational andinformative actions, which is why this can appropriately becalled the public education model. This struggle for enlighten-ment against all forms of obscurantism is endless.

5. In this model the risks associated with technoscience (environ-mental or health hazards) exist in two forms: an objective and asubjective form. Objective risks are described and analysed byscientists who assign probabilities to certain events and identifyrisk factors. Subjective risks are those which individuals, and inparticular, lay persons, imagine without any reference toattested and objective knowledge. The risk of a serious accidentin a French or Japanese nuclear power plant is calculated, the


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specialists tell us, and its probability can be considered to beminute. The risk perceived by the inhabitants of the neighbour-ing areas is, however, variable and may in certain circumstancesbe so high that it seems out of touch with reality. Just ~as theyhelp to re-establish a climate of trust, so too educative andinformation actions move the perceived and objective risks

closer together. Once the emotions and beliefs clouding theirminds have been dispelled, the citizens or consumers are in aposition to take rational decisions. Such decisions do not, how-ever, exclude the existence of risks, for a society without risks isa stagnant society; on the contrary, they accept tnem knowingly.

6. In this model, the legitimacy of political decisions has twosources. The first concerns the goals that are set and dependsonly on the representativeness of those who speak in the nameof the citizens. The second relates to the resources mobilised tomeet these goals and is conferred by the scientific, objective anduniversal knowledge, which makes it possible to foresee theeffects produced by certain actions. In order to be legitimate, adecision must have objectives approved by all citizens, but itmust also be realistic, that is to say, it must not sell illusions andmust therefore recognise the force of facts and come to termswith it. Political action is made of consultation (what do we wantto do?) and explanation (what can we do?).

. The Public Debate Model (M2)

The public education model (Ml) is based on the irreducible opposi-tion between scientific and popular knowledge. No discussion is pos-sible before superstitions, those assumed poisons of democracy, havebeen eradicated.

This model, carefully maintained and reproduced, sometimesencounters setbacks when the underlying assumptions are invali-dated, with the impossibility of restoring their relevance. This relativefailure leads to the introduction of a second model, that of publicdebate, obtained by deforming and extending the preceding one. Thissecond model proposes richer relations between lay people and sci-entists. An undifferentiated public consisting of individuals who act,depending on the circumstances, as citizens or consumers and can bedistinguished from one another only by their level of knowledge, is



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replaced by-differentiated publics (depending on their conditions inlife, their professional activities, their locality, age or sex, etc.). Thelatter possess specific, particular and concrete knowledge and com-petencies, the fruit of their experiences and observations which, whenmobilised and debated in public arenas, enhance the abstract andinhuman knowledge of the scientists.

1. As in the preceding model, scientific knowledge has a universalvalue. By construction it is, however, incomplete and deficient,for its exactitude and generality are undermined by its abstrac-tion and deficiency. Thus, the conditions of validity of knowl-edge produced by researchers are restricted to the rare andcostly places in which the experimental conditions that allowedits controlled formulation prevail, i.e., the laboratory. If thisknowledge were to apply and be reproduced in any place and atany time, it would be necessary first to transform society into avast laboratory. What some have called the laboratorisation ofsociety can, moreover, be witnessed in numerous other places.That is how the differences gradually disappear between a fac-.tory producing vectors for genetic therapy or a CD-ROM pro-duction plant, on the one hand, and a research laboratory work-ing on similar techniques, on the other. But this movementcannot be total because reality always ends up overflowing, sothat laboratory-produced knowledge cannot absorb the fullcomplexity and richness of the world. A large number of anthro-pological studies have shown this shortcoming. B. Wynne(1987), for example, analysed in detail the interactions betweenshepherds living close to a nuclear reprocessing plant in .thenorth-west of England, and the numerous specialists responsi-ble for monitoring its functioning and evaluating its impacts. Heshows that the world in which the shepherds and their sheep live

. is so rich, so differentiated, complex and changing, that special-ised knowledge never manages to work through it all. First theexperts models were undermined by unexpected geologicalpeculiarities, then-and on this point the shepherds knew farmore than the researchers-the hypothesis that the forms offood and metabolism of sheep grazing in an enclosure are iden-tical to those of sheep grazing freely, was suddenly refuted.Tired of resisting, the experts ended up admitting that theirexpertise was partial and that, to be realistic, it had to be


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completed by the observations and knowledge of the natives.This complementarity of universal and local knowledge, withthe latter enriching the former, is also to be found in the testingof new drugs, where patients are capable of very subtle analyses,as in the case of phenomena of addiction to psychotropic sub-stances. The competencies of lay people go much further thanthat: they include abilities to carry out sociological analyseswhich lead them, for example, to relativise the content of cer-tain scientists standpoints by relating them to their professionalor economic interests (is such-and-such, a researcher in favourof transgenic plants, not influenced by his position as scientificadviser to a major industrial group?). Scientists are, moreover,always limited by the narrowness of their specialty and aretherefore as powerless as the lay persons when addressing ethi-cal or economic issues.

2. Since science produced in laboratories is at best incomplete, atworst unrealistic and, in any event, incapable of accounting forthe complexity of the specific problems to which it is applied, itis advisable to open the forum for discussion and deliberationso as to create the conditions of its enrichment. This require-ment is even greater in problematical and controversial situa-tions. In this model the absence of agreement between special-ists is a call for debate and for external enrichment, and not thesign, as in Model 1, of a lack of maturity and a need for internaldeepening. As Wynne emphasises: when experts cannot reacha consensus, it is frequently because the laboratory is notenough to do justice to the diversity of conceptions and hypoth-

eases, and to anticipate all the possible effects. To decide on thesite for an underground laboratory for storing nuclear waste, itis necessary to explore not only the hardness and stability ofprofound geological strata, but also the full economic and socialimplications for the entire region.The solutions that were, and still are, imagined for opening

up discussion and consultation are numerous and vary depend-ing on the country. In all cases they are, however, materialisedin procedures aimed at broadening the circle of actors address-ing the issue of technoscience and its applications. These proce-dures, even if they were not necessarily intended to do so,enrich the intervention of the public authorities and business.They replace an undifferentiated public, consisting of citizens


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or anonymous consumers, by differentiated publics with partic-ular and contrasting competencies and points of view. It wouldbe tedious to compile an exhaustive list of these procedures; weshall mention only the most significant.

Inquiries and public hearings are used to gather the opinions,suggestions and comments of the different actors or groups ofactors who wish to express themselves. With the focus groupmethod, used by public authorities and firms alike, a collectivedynamics is created at the same time as a contrasting represen-tation of viewpoints and interests. In this case, instead of indi-viduals being questioned, several homogeneous groups areorganised in relation to variable criteria, for the purpose of for-mulating their own arguments and recommendations. Localinformation committees, which have proliferated during recentyears in France (in the fields of waste, industrial hazard or watermanagement), constitute mini-parliaments where decisionsand measures concerning particular territories or situations arediscussed: knowledge, hypotheses, forecasts and arguments arecompared and sometimes experiments are conducted. The con-sensus conferences which flourished in the Scandinavian andEnglish-speaking countries, and which Japan and France areadopting, organise a strictly bound dialogue between lay peopleand scientists on themes of general interest. What is mobilisedin these cases, more than local indigenous knowledge, is theirreplaceable capacity that non-specialists have to assess thepolitical, cultural and ethical implications of certain research(e.g., genetic cloning) in order to frame it and limit researchersfreedom.

3. These procedures, which establish public arenas for debate,tend to muddle the usual boundaries between specialists andnon-specialists. These boundaries give way to the proliferation

of divisions criss-crossing the scientific community and the pub-lic alike. Agreement is obtained through compromise, whichmost often is the outcome of complicated strategic games. Inthis model the light is not shed by a brilliant and self-confidentscience; it is generated by the comparison of opinions, knowl-edge and judgements which, being separate and distinct, aremutually enriching. The actors, rather than being forced toadopt behaviours and an identity in which they may not evenrecognise themselves, are in a position to negotiate.


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4. The crises which, in Model 1, are ascribed to a loss of confidenceby lay people vis-A-vis scientists and science, can be explained inthis model by the sudden expression of opinions which hithertohad no opportunity to be spoken. Silence is simply the conse-quence of the absence of procedures for allowing people tospeak and to organise disagreement. The crisis of confidence,which may be reflected in violent claims, is merely the sudden,radical and dramatic expression of existing criticism. Formu-lated in private, such criticism was never able to be spoken in apublic arena and was therefore inaudible. It stems from indige-nous knowledge and assessments. To avoid a crisis, one merelyhas to allow its expression.

5. As in Model 1, reticence vis-A-vis technoscience is related to therisks it involves. But, unlike Model 1, the risks in Model 2 arenot related to the occurrence of unexpected events from theoutside; they concern the very identity of the actors. WhatWynne shows so well is that the shepherds are no more pusillan-imous than the researchers and are no more prisoners of theirbeliefs than the experts. What they fear above all is that some-one else may decide for them what is good for them, and thatsuch decisions would be taken without the slightest knowledgeof their needs or wishes. Similarly, patients on whom new drugsare tested would like to express their opinions rather than beingforced to behave in ways that are repugnant to them. Winegrowers in the Marcoule region would like decision-makers totake account of the fact that the Japanese market may wellrefuse their wines produced close to a radioactive waste storagesite. The risk of losing ones identity, through the refusal to takeinto consideration ones knowledge and the competence basedon it, is the fear of lay people in Model 2. Here the antidote isnot education but the opportunity to speak.

6. The construction of a public forum for discussion, irrespectiveof its form, structure and extension, profoundly transforms theprocess of public or private decision-making. Decisions taken inthe secret corridors of power and applied to all without any dis-cussion, are replaced by decisions which take into account theexistence and diversity of controversial local situations. Theyprovide the opportunity for the different stakeholders to ex-press themselves, and establish a minimum right of access toinformation. In these conditions, the legitimacy of decisions


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relies essentially on the existence of consultation and opendebate. This is as true for the firm that wants apprehensivefarmers to agree on the validity of its project to spread sewagesludge, as it is for the public authorities who explore the diverseoptions for managing nuclear waste.

This form of legitimacy has its own specific limits: it comes upagainst the thorny question of representativeness. Who shouldbe included in the debate? Who represents whom? Model 2 isuseful for avoiding scientists monopoly over speech but, onceopen, the question of representativeness is difficult to close. InModel 2 it is a permanent issue.

The Co-production of Knowledge Model (M3)

In Model 1 the priority is on the education of a scientifically illiteratepublic. In Model 2 the right to discussion comes first because lay peo-ple have knowledge and competencies which enhance and completethose of scientists and specialists. Yet, beyond their differences, thesetwo models share a common obsession: that of demarcation. Model1, in a forceful way, and Model 2, in a gentler, more pragmatic way,deny lay people any competence for participating in the productionof the only knowledge of any value: that which warrants the term sci-entific. In Model 1 the exclusion is total; in Model 2 it is negotiated,but in both cases the fear is that laboratories will be taken by storm byhordes of non-specialists. The co-production of knowledge model,Model 3, tends to overcome these limits by actively involving lay peo-ple in the creation of knowledge concerning them.

1. In this model the role of non-specialists in the production ofknowledge and know-how is essential. In Model 1 the constantconcern is to do away with local knowledge and beliefs; inModel 2, it is to take account of it only for the purpose of enrich-ing official expertise. In the third model the dynamics of knowl-edge is the result of a constantly renewed tension between the

. production of standardised and universal knowledge on onehand, and the production of knowledge that takes into accountthe complexity of singular local situations, on the other hand.These two forms of knowledge are not totally incompatible, asin Model 1, nor are they produced independently from each


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other as in Model 2; they are the common by-product of a singleprocess in which the different actors, both specialists and non-specialists, work in close collaboration.

2. The notion of publics which are differentiated (M2) or undiffer-entiated (Ml) is replaced by that of the concerned group, agood example of which are associations of patients. These asso-ciations are groups of volunteers (patients and their relatives)involved in collective actions which are not reducible to the sumof individual actions. Moreover, they publicly affirm the exis-tence of a peculiarity, that of human beings struck by the samedisease, which endows them with a specific shared identity anddistinguishes them from other human beings. In the dynamicsof the production of knowledge and know-how concerning theirdisease, the members of these associations often play an activeor even, in some circumstances, predominant role.Take the case of a group of patients suffering from rare gene-

tic diseases, known as orphan diseases. Ignored by institu-tional medicine, these people organise themselves in order toexist in the face of powerless specialists who sometimes go as faras depriving them of the right to survive: leave them to die,dont get attached to them, theres nothing we can do, theyrecondemned. To assert themselves and have their existence re-cognised, they naturally engage in what could be called a primi-tive accumulation of scientific knowledge: researching andidentifying diseases; organising and actively participating in thecollection of DNA; producing films or compiling photo albumsdesigned to be effective observation tools for monitbring andcomparing the clinical developments of the disease and estab-lishing the effects of certain treatment; recording testimonieswhich transmit live experiences; and carrying out surveysamong patients, which sometimes go as far as the publication ofarticles in academic journals. The patients active contributionis ni t limited to this basic accumulation which puts both diseaseand victims into the same field of objective knowledge; it goesfurther than that with, for example, direct participation in ther-apeutic trials and the evaluation of their results.

In this dynamic the interactions between lay people-here,the patients-and specialists-here, doctors and biologists-are constant. Knowledge, from the most universal and general(e.g., on genes) to the most specific (e.g., the art and ways of


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dealing with a tracheotomy patient) is appropriated, discussedand adapted by a hybrid collective composed of patients andspecialists. This does not mean that there is no division of taskswithin this learned collective. Laboratories continue to play acapital role since all the equipment and skills required for diffi-cult and costly investigations are concentrated in them. Butthese laboratories are not separated from the patients; theywork in close collaboration with them, caught in a constant flowof interaction and discussion. In the learned collective, eachperson has his or her word to say; complementarities predomi-nate in a context where information is exchanged and theactions undertaken by different parties are closely coordinated.The patient, or rather, the group of patients, is an obligatorypoint of passage: it has had to become organised and to have itsexistence recognised, in order to become a research object in itsown right. This process of objectification is, unfortunately,never complete because every time new knowledge is gained itfavours survival and in so doing contributes towards the emer-gence of new questions and problems which stimulate the col-lective dynamics.

3. It is possible, in this model, to talk of collective learning, sincethe different knowledge is mutually enriching throughout theprocess of its co-production. What distinguishes this modelfrom the preceding ones is obviously the existence of what wehave called concerned groups. Being directly involved on a nec-essarily collective basis (each singular case can be dealt withonly in comparison with other cases) these groups may, in cer-tain circumstances, play a leading role in the production, orien-tation and evaluation of knowledge. They may, depending ontheir preoccupations, sponsor the state of the art on the subjectsthey consider to be strategic or, for example, decide on thera-peutic trials and participate in their evaluation. The knowledgeproduced by laboratories is just as crucial as in Models 1 and 2,but it is framed, fed by the actions of lay people and by the flowof knowledge and questions they formulate. Whatever it pro-duces is particularly rich and relevant since relationships areclose and stable. The patients ensure that they are in a positionto control the knowledge concerning their disease, and therebygain access to the construction of their own identity.


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4. By participating in the collective action of production and dis-semination of the knowledge and know-how concerning it, thegroup does not experience its relationship with specialists in amode of trust or mistrust since it is on an equal footing withthem. Nor does it, as in Model 2, merely reaffirm a threatenedidentity; it participates in the construction of a new, reconfig-

,

ured identity which gives it access to social recognition. Thepatient suffering from a serious genetic deficiency, by partici-pating actively in the hybrid collective, creates a new identity forwhich s/he strives to achieve recognition and in which s/herecognises himself; for example, from being hardly human, withno existence, condemned by a weakness which ne tries to hide,s/he progressively transforms himself into a public being in hisown right, the victim of an error in genetic coding, but in allother respects similar to his fellow beings. This constructed andnegotiated identity, together with the knowledge and tech-niques comprising it, maintain a completely original relation-ship with science. In this case, genes are no longer external real-ities which impose their merciless logic on human beingsreduced to little more than the consequence of a biologicaldeterminism; they are collectively integrated, domesticated,shared and manipulated. Thanks to them and to the researchwhich helps them understand the modalities of the functioningand dysfunctioning of the genes, patients have a hold over theirbehaviour, their suffering and their fate, in short, their identity,and they induce the researchers and practitioners to share thatcontrol with them.

5. The legitimacy of this common enterprise, through which newknowledge and new identities are jointly created, relies entirelyon the ability of the concerned groups to gain recognition fortheir actions. How can one develop this research devoted to asingular disease without financial resources, and how can re-sources be accumulated without the involvement of the public,that is to say, without the interessement and the enrolment of allthose who are not directly concerned with the disease in ques-tion ? Either the concerned group is capable of this type ofmobilisation and thereby legitimises both the research it sup-ports and the new identity which that research enables it to con-struct bit by bit; or else it is incapable of doing so and conse-quently sinks into oblivion and non-existence. An example of


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the first possibility is the association against myopathy and therecognition achieved by the Telethon. Myopaths are no longerdegenerates hidden by their families, but human beings likeeveryone else who are allowed to perform on a television set.An example of the second eventuality are the victims of satur-nism who, found in the most underprivileged social milieux, areexcluded a second time because they have neither the meansnor the wish to have their difference recognised or to constructa new identity.

The cornerstone of Model 1 is the trust that lay people have in sci-entists ; that of Model 2 is the question of representativeness. The via-bility of Model 3 depends on the difficult conciliation between thedefense of minorities, whose identity depends to a large degree onthe knowledge produced, and the achievement of a common goodwhich is not carved up by particular interests. As the example ofgenetic diseases suggests, technoscience contributes towards thispossibility of conciliation. The recognition of genes explains thehandicap and makes it possible to work on it, while simultaneouslyserving as a basis for actions which might eventually be beneficial tothe majority.

Conclusion

Each of these models proposes an original form of production anddissemination of scientific knowledge which, in a specific way, com-bines the nature of the knowledge produced, the modalities of coop-eration between specialists and lay people, as well as the conditions ofeffectiveness and legitimacy of the decisions taken.Each model may be considered both as an idealised description of

existing realities and as a reference mobilised by the actors when theyneed to organise systematically the world in which they have decidedto live. One of the consequences is that there is no reason for a onemodel definitively to replace another. It is difficult to imagine, forexample, how particle physics could submit to Model 3 when, in orderto succeed, it had to cut itself off from the public and work in thesecrecy of its laboratories, behind huge esoteric equipment. On theother hand, the organisation and production of knowledge on prob-lems concerning the environment, health or food safety could easily


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fit into Models 2 and 3 and the hybrid forums they organise. All ofthese issues imply an active contribution by lay people, either toenrich, complete and boost scientific knowledge produced in a labo-ratory, or to participate directly, at least on certain occasions, in itsproduction. Each of these cases involves the intervention of the par-ticular publics or concerned groups (for example, the populationsshown by epidemiological surveys to be at-risk) who take action andwho, by participating in knowledge production, struggle to define andimpose their own identity.

This type of approach helps to furnish a satisfactory explanationfor what some consider as the crisis of confidence currently experi-enced by technoscience. Contrary to what authors such as Beck main-tain, there is no crisis of confidence in science, but a crisis of theregimes, in which the participation of lay people is based on trust ormistrust. These authors see the passage from one regime to anotherbut make the mistake of analysing it with the categories correspond-ing to the regimes that disappear. One of the challenges for STSmight be to understand more fully the functioning of Model 3 and tohighlight the conditions of its diffusion, or more precisely of itstranspositions.

REFERENCES

BECK, ULRICH (1992), Risk Society: Towards New Modernity. London: Sage Publica-tions.

WYNNE, BRIAN (1987), Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation andthe Dialectics of Credibility. Berlin: Springer.


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Callon - The Role of Lay People in the Production and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge