Presenting Futures

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XXVI

   PDF

2. Nanotechnology: The Future Is Coming Sooner than You Think

   • Joseph Kennedy

   Pages 1-21

3. The Workers’ Push to Democratize Nanotechnology

   • Guillermo Foladori, Noela Invernizzi

   Pages 23-36

4. Thinking Longer Term about Technology

   • Christine Peterson

   Pages 37-47

5. Constructive Technology Assessment and Socio-Technical Scenarios

   • Arie Rip, Haico te Kulve

   Pages 49-70

6. Information and Imagination: How Lux Research Forecasts

   • Mark Bünger

   Pages 71-89

7. Designing for the Future: Nanoscale Research Facilities

   • Ahmad Soueid

   Pages 91-108

8. What Drives Public Acceptance of Nanotechnology?

   • Steven C. Currall, Eden B. King, Neal Lane, Juan Madera, Stacy Turner

   Pages 109-116

9. Nanologue

   • Volker Türk

   Pages 117-122

10. Anticipating the Futures of Nanotechnology: Visionary Images as Means of Communication

    • Andreas Lösch

    Pages 123-142

11. Winners of Nano-Hazard Symbol Contest Announced atWorld Social Forum, Nairobi, Kenya

    • ETC Group

    Pages 143-145

12. Your Children, Their Children…

    • Agilent Technologies

    Pages 147-148

13. Developing Plausible Nano-Enabled Products

    • Ira Bennett

    Pages 149-155

14. Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense 2030 Workshop and Study

    • Margaret E. Kosal

    Pages 157-162

15. Nanotechnologies for Tomorrow’s Society: A Case for Reflective Action Research in Flanders, Belgium

    • Lieve Goorden, Michiel van Oudheusden, Johan Evers, Marian Deblonde

    Pages 163-182

16. Communications in the Age of Nanotechnology

    • Griffith A. Kundahl

    Pages 183-194

17. How Can Business Respond to the Technical, Social, and Commercial Uncertainties of Nanotechnology?

    • Hilary Sutcliffe

    Pages 195-200

18. Manufactured Nanoparticle Health and Safety Disclosure [Draft Report]

    • Erik Fisher, Cynthia Selin, Jameson M. Wetmore

    Pages 201-205

19. A Framework for Responsible Nanotechnology

    • Scott Walsh, Terry Medley

    Pages 207-213

20. Contemplating the Implications of a Nanotechnology “Revolution”

    • Georgia Miller

    Pages 215-225

Welcome to the ?rst volume of the Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society! Nanotechnology, hailed as “the next industrial revolution” (NSTC 2000) and c- tiqued for being little more than “hype” (Berube 2006), is the site of a great deal of social and intellectual contest. With some ten billion dollars being spent worldwide on nanotechnology research and development annually and a market forecast of trillions of dollars in sales in the medium-term future (Lux Research 2006), nations and ?rms are pursuing nano-related goals with high levels of both effort and - pectations. Yet according to the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s web-based Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory, most of the more than 500 na- products on the market as of this writing are basic consumer items—cosmetics, clothing, athletic equipment and the like—with modest, incremental improvements on their non-nano counterparts. Nanotechnology is also the site of an increasing amount of scholarship dedicated to understanding the interactions between society and an emerging knowled- based technological endeavor. Searching the Web of Science indices in social s- ence and humanities for nanotech* and nanoparticle*, for example, yields 231 hits 1 since 1990, but 75 percent of these occur in 2004 through 2007. This scholarship attempts to fathom the implications of nanotechnologies for society, as well as the implications for nanotechnologies of society. Some of it is also engaged in dialogue with both the public and with nanotechnology researchers about the hope and the hype described above.

• Ethical, Legal, and Society Implications (ELSI)
• High Tech
• Nanotechnologie
• Nation
• environment
• foresight
• future
• nanotechnology
• safety
• science and technology
• science policy

It provides a unique compilation of a major stream of work within nanotechnology in society and its connections in US and W. Europe. It captures and explores many of the tensions surrounding this new enterprise of predicting technologies’ futures, while indicating some of the ways this process reproduces past challenges in technoscience and society. The collection includes pieces from an admirable range of ‘stakeholders’ in nanotechnologies’ futures: STS researchers from several countries and a number of institutions representing diverse views about nanotechnologies’ potentials for assessment, and a smaller number from science, NGOs, industry, and government. The collection brings together several key US policy documents, as well as scholarly texts, more informal reports, and personal statements—the array of formats is an interesting approach to considering the ‘future in the making’ that is the nano enterprise and its societal interactions.

• Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

  Erik Fisher, Cynthia Selin, Jameson M. Wetmore

Policies and ethics