Anestis Amanatidis

Politics of participation under contestation: experimentation and innovation in agricultural test sites

Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Laurens Hessels, Dr. Thomas Franssen

Background

I got in touch with STS via my Master’s programme in Techno Anthropology at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, where I wrote my thesis about transdisciplinary collaborations that happened as part of an EU-funded project experimenting with approaches to responsible research and innovation. Later, I worked as junior researcher in projects concerning the governance of science and technology under banners such as open science, and thematically focused on monitoring and evaluation.

Content

In view of an ‘opening up’ of science, I set out to understand how different modes of public participation, such as experimental test sites, living labs, transdisciplinary research arrangements, but also informal forms of participation bear on traditionally scientific practices and what new configurations of knowledge production emerge through these. I focus on agricultural knowledge production. Finally, I contextualise these observations in discussions concerning democracy and controversies that seem to spring from science-backed policies and interventions.

Publications

Amanatidis, A., & Børsen, T. (2024). Critical proximity in translating RRI. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2024.2373508

Philipp, S., & Amanatidis, A. (2024). Talking about practice: agency and its structural context in regional healthcare practice change. Regional Studies, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2024.2409907.