Developing a novel approach to participatory technology assessment through science fiction in the case of climate geoengineering

该博士项目旨在通过气候地球工程的科幻小说开发一种新的参与式技术评估方法。气候地球工程等前瞻性技术-即“大规模干预地球气候系统”，包括碳去除和太阳辐射管理-对环境和社会造成多种意想不到的影响。在科学和技术研究（STS）的跨学科领域的工作不断强调，需要进一步推进，通过将这些新的科学进步的替代性，创造性和艺术想象力纳入评估实践中，来应对气候地球工程技术带来的社会未来。然而，目前让公众和更广泛的社会参与参与技术评估进程的努力主要是在专家的推动下，在气候地球工程的科学想象中进行的正式邀请参与活动。该项目旨在通过首次将参与性技术评估和社会技术想象力与气候地球工程科幻小说结合起来，开放技术评估实践并使其多样化。它将通过系统地绘制自2006年以来在英国发生的气候地球工程科幻小说和公众参与的各种实例来做到这一点（当“地球工程”一词在科学文献中正式化时）;分析这些科幻小说中明显的地球工程未来;以及开发一个参与性实验，通过该实验，它将测试和评估一种新的以科幻小说为基础的参与性技术评估方法。这些方法将依次用于回答以下研究问题：1）在英国发生的气候地球工程科幻小说的不同形式的公众参与的性质是什么？2)在这些与气候地球工程科幻小说的公开接触中，人们想象着什么样的社会技术未来？3)如何利用这些基于科幻小说的愿景和公众参与来开启气候地球工程的参与性技术评估？作为英国参与性技术评估的焦点，气候地球工程预计将在最近的COP 26之后在减缓气候变化方面发挥重要作用。因此，这个博士学位提供了关于气候地球工程技术正在开发的方式的经验，理论和方法论贡献，通过阐明公众参与未来的艺术形式的重要性，以及对气候地球工程未来的社会层面产生新的见解。此外，通过对科幻小说中气候地球工程的不同公众观点进行更大的问责，该项目将提出有关气候地球工程的新问题和可能性，这些问题和可能性可能尚未形成，但这将对学术和政策倡议具有重要意义，如英国环境研究中心公众参与观测站和英国温室气体清除示范计划。

This PhD project aims to develop a new approach to participatory technology assessment through science fiction in the case of climate geoengineering.Prospective technologies such as climate geoengineering - i.e. 'large scale interventions in the Earth's climate system' including carbon removal and solar radiation management - pose multiple un-intended implications to the environment and society. Work in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technologies Studies (STS) has continuously stressed the need to advance further in attending to the social futures that come forward with climate geoengineering technologies via incorporating alternative, creative, and artistic imagination of these new scientific advances in assessment practice. However, existing attempts to engage publics and wider society in participatory technology assessment processes have mainly been formal invited exercises of participation facilitated by experts and framed within the scientific imagination of climate geoengineering. This project seeks to open up and diversify technology assessment practice by bringing together work on participatory technology assessment and sociotechnical imaginaries with climate geoengineering science fiction for the first time. It will do this via a systematic mapping of diverse instances of climate geoengineering science fiction and public engagements with them occurring in the UK since 2006 (when the term 'geoengineering' was formalised in scientific literature); analysis of the imagined geoengineered futures evident within these science fiction climate geoengineering engagements; and the development of a participation experiment through which it will test and evaluate a new science fiction-based approach to participatory technology assessment. These methods will be used in turn to answer the following research questions:1) What is the nature of diverse forms of public engagement with science fiction on climate geoengineering occurring in the UK?2) What kinds of sociotechnical futures are being imagined in these public engagements with climate geoengineering science fiction?3) How can these science fiction-based visions and public engagements be used to open up participatory technology assessments of climate geoengineering?Being a focal point for participatory technology assessments in the UK, climate geoengineering is projected to play a major role in mitigating climate change following the recent COP26. This PhD therefore offers empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions with regard to the way climate geoengineering technologies are being developed, via articulating the importance of artistic forms of public engagement in future-making and the production of new insights on the social dimensions of climate geoengineered futures. Additionally, through greater accountability of diverse public views on climate geoengineering in science fiction, this project will bring forward new concerns and possibilities regarding climate geoengineering that might not have yet formed, but which will be significant to academic and policy initiatives such as the UKERC Public Engagement Observatory, and the UK's Greenhouse Gas Removal demonstration programme.