What is it about?
With recent emphasis on 'translation' within science-policy studies, this paper examines what the act of 'translating' scientific findings into policy involves. The paper shows 1) how translation reproduces status quo relations of power, 2) how 'ways of speaking' are bound together with the financial funding of science, and 3) how, under translation, policy options are narrowed ahead of democratic debate.
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Why is it important?
The paper offers a unique and timely analysis of the relations of power involved in science-policy translation. Ensuring that public policy making is exposed to difference, not just fed with familiar perspectives, is vital for climate change - opening possibilities for alternative climate change policies that may be more effective. But more than this, it is vital for the democratic nature of (climate) politics itself.
Perspectives
I have been moved throughout this research, by conversations with scientists who, despite their work, felt unable to contribute to the political debate on climate change or to challenge policy. I hope the paper strikes a balance between acknowledging the valiant work that boundary organisations like CXC perform, and what I feel is the urgent need to draw attention to the relations of power into which boundary organisations are being enrolled. In calling out the importance of keeping multiplicity and difference apparent, I want to draw attention to what is being lost/risked by organizing the relationship between science and society in this way. My hope is that translation can be done differently. Or, that the paper inspires alternative ways of envisaging the science-policy relationship, so that difference, and debate amongst alternatives, remain possible.
Ruth Machen
Newcastle University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Towards a critical politics of translation: (Re)Producing hegemonic climate governance, Environment and Planning E Nature and Space, July 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/2514848618785515.
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