Dissertation Research: Doing Nanotechnology in the 21st Century Postsocialist China: Local Worlds and Alternative Modernities

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This NSF Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant funds dissertation research focusing on the emergence of nanotechnology in China. The project is using the case study of China to reconsider social theories of science, modernization and globalization. Under this grant, the doctoral student will gather ethnographic data to address several postcolonial debates in social studies of science and literatures on China's socio-economic transformation. The researcher will specifically investigate two metropolitan Chinese cities: Beijing and Shanghai, and attempt to show how local politics and situated mentalities can significantly shape research practice among Chinese scientists in nanotechnology. The project will examine how their intellectual networks, especially with ethnic Chinese scientists overseas, help them overcome language barriers, acquire useful information and obtain other help to conduct nanotechnology research for an increasingly international audience. The project also exams how academic exchanges between overseas and local Chinese scientists mutually shape the research practice of each other. To supplement the data collection, the student will also interview a smaller number of scientists in U.S. and Hong Kong, and will collect ethnographic data from participant-observations in professional conferences and meetings in U.S., China and Hong Kong. Finally, the student will visit several special collection sections in Chinese libraries during the research trip for documentary analysis. China is currently undergoing rapid socio-economic transformations. Scientific research has benefited from rapid advances in telecommunication and transportation in that country, but not much is known about Chinese science actors. In addition, the country continues to possess enormous within-country variations, but we do not know how such variations manifest in high-technology development in China. As the global emergence of nanotechnology will involve China, this project's findings will help identify the various kinds of opportunities, constraints and debates in front of Chinese scientists. The understanding will be useful materials for transnational comparisons. The project will also shed new light to postcolonial studies of science. To date, no studies have used postcolonial theories to examine high technology development in China. Research findings from this study will be used as teaching materials for college and graduate courses, particularly in social studies of science. In addition, results of this research will be disseminated to other scientists, social scientists, as well as the general public.