Dissertation Research: Ecological "Technological Enthusiasm": Tensions at the intersection of science, technology and values

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This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant will provide funds to support research costs for a Ph.D. student who is examining the innovation and adoption of ecotechnologies based on ecological engineering Principles. The topic will be studied to further develop the analysis and critique of the process of ecological modernization. The specific goals of the field research are: 1) To identify and describe the reasons individuals became involved in the innovation and adoption of ecologically engineered ecotechnologies and their goals and aspirations for these fields; 2) To identify and describe differences and changes in the definitions of ecotechnologies and ecological engineering and 3) To identify and describe differences and tensions amongst the participants in the innovation and adoption of ecotechnologies. Funds will support participant observation and semi-structured interviews in order to collect data on individuals' ideas, motivations and values associated with the innovation and adoption of ecotechnologies. This case study will utilize the ecotechnology of ecological engineered wastewater systems as the unifying frame through which research sites are selected. The research field sites and subjects will represent a range of involvement: 1) Academic researchers; 2) Not-for-Profit innovators; 3) For-profit contractors and 4) The technology adopters. Ecological modernization theory predicts that green technologies in general will be moving toward a more central position in industry, society, and policy. As this occurs for a green technology, aspects of the meaning and values ascribed to the ecotechnology could be lost. It is also theorized that the process of incorporation of these new technologies will favor the technologies that are complementary to mainstream practice over more radical alternatives (Hess 2003), and that such partial adoption can favor the concerns of capitalism, to the detriment of the expression of alternative values and rationalities (Guldbrandsen and Holland 2001). This research will explore these critiques through the investigation of the changes and tensions that are occurring in the innovation and adoption of ecologically engineered wastewater technologies. This work brings a rapprochement between Environmental Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Environmental anthropologists' inclusion of technology in their studies has largely centered on environmental movements in opposition to technologies (e.g. Berglund 2001). Similarly, STS practitioners have looked at the adoption of alternative or appropriate technologies, but these are often done from a historical or sociological perspective (e.g. Mol 2003). This research pushes environmental anthropology to a richer exploration of environmental movements, as well as bringing the anthropological concern for the real experiences of individuals to the STS analysis of alternative technology. The second intellectual merit of this research is its willingness to tackle the challenges involved in accepting both the call for anthropologists to study-up (Nader 1974), as well as the call for anthropologists to engage in multi-sited research (Marcus 1995). The third merit of this work is its conjoining of theoretical concerns with a more "activist oriented STS" (Woodhouse 2002). It is this activist orientation that lends itself to broader application. The applied goal of this research is to facilitate the identification and discussion of points of tension in the development of the field of ecological engineering. This research addresses questions and concerns that ecotechnology practitioners themselves identify (Kangas 2004). This research will be especially helpful in the current formalization and boundary setting in the academic discipline of ecological engineering.