Managing the experience of evidence: England’s experimental waste technologies and their immodest witnesses

Reno, Joshua. 2011. Managing the experience of evidence: England’s experimental waste technologies and their immodest witnesses. Science, Technology and Human Values, 36(6), pp. 842-863. ISSN 0162-2439 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This article explores the techno-environmental politics associated with government-sponsored climate change mitigation. It focuses on England’s New Technologies Demonstrator Program, established to test the 'viability' of 'green' waste treatments by awarding state aid to eight experimental projects that promise to divert municipal waste from landfill and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The article examines how these demonstrator sites are arranged and represented to produce non-controversial and publicly accessible forms of evidence and experience and, ultimately, to inform environmental policy and planning decisions throughout the country. As in experimental science, this process requires that some bear witness to the demonstrators, but in a disciplined way. Whether through the extrapolation of facts about technical performance by affiliated third-party consultants, or the orchestration of visitor centers open to the general public, making the demonstrators public involves controlling the ways in which they are interpreted and perceived. However, the unstable publicity of waste management facilities proliferates unofficial accounts as well. These acts of counter-witnessing, as I refer to them, not only potentially dispute the official evidence collected from the demonstrators, they also can pose a challenge to the understanding of technology upon which such government initiatives are based.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243910376158

Related URLs:

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Anthropology

Dates:

DateEvent
November 2011Published

Funders:

Funding bodyFunder IDGrant Number
ESRC (RES 000- 23-0007)UNSPECIFIED

Item ID:

4488

Date Deposited:

08 Nov 2011 15:55

Last Modified:

29 Apr 2020 15:31

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/4488

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