Sub Groups

Peter Simmons, Lancaster University

1. Scope and character of recent relevant research studies.

Together with Brian Wynne, I have been responsible for co-ordinating an EC-funded study on public views of agricultural biotechnology in five European countries (PABE). This is the latest in a series of studies aimed at deepening understanding of public sensibilities on technological risk issues. The research design used in the PABE study and the analysis developed has built on these earlier studies. The PABE project has involved partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The research involved interviews with key stakeholders and focus group discussions with members of the 'lay' public. The focus groups were conducted in parallel, to a common protocol, in all five countries. In total, eleven groups were convened in each country. These were organised in two rounds, to enable a more in-depth investigation of issues raised in the first round of groups during the second phase of the research. The final report of the project is currently being written in collaboration with our partners and will be publicly available by the end of February.

2. Preferred research method(s) and forms of validation.

The research into public views of environmental, technological and risk issues carried out at Lancaster, including the PABE study described above, has utilised what are usually referred to as qualitative methods. The data collection methods most frequently used have been focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, together with the use of documentary data for contextual analysis. In a previous study of public risk perceptions carried out for the HSE, these methods were augmented with Q-methodology, a psychological pattern-analytic technique for the study of public views. We are planning to adopt similar mixed-method research designs in future work, including a proposed European project on public values in relation to agricultural biotechnology. The primary means of analysing these data has been inductive interpretation. However, this interpretative process does not begin with a blank sheet but has been informed by insights derived from relevant social theory in a number of disciplines and from relevant empirical research, both at Lancaster and elsewhere.

Techniques for validating the interpretation of data have included academic peer review workshops, interactive relationships with key stakeholders in the relevant domains, respondent validation, triangulation of results obtained by different methods, and cross-checking of coding and interpretations among research team members. Drawing on the model of the sciences, great store is still set on the peer review of publications in academic journals. This undoubtedly continues to be an important mechanism for the validation of social scientific knowledge, although the peer review system itself has been subject to considerable criticism in recent years. However, the conditions within which knowledge is produced has changed dramatically in recent decades and we need to explore appropriate methods of validation for work that aims to address issues concerning fundamental social values in a relevant and timely way.

3. Relationships to other research in the field

In terms of agricultural biotechnology, the PABE research can be seen as complementing other research carried out using different approaches. Its most important contribution is to enable a more in-depth, contextualised analysis of public views of, responses to and discourse about agricultural biotechnology than more formalised methods such as surveys and attitudinal or psychometric scaling. Similarly, while methods such as the analysis of media content are important for understanding the cultural context within which members of the public form their views and for analysing the trajectory of public debate, media content cannot be taken as a proxy for public views. All of these methods have an important contribution to make in understanding this complex and dynamic field but in-depth qualitative studies enable us to gain considerable insight into the relationship between the construction of public views and contextual factors of a social, cultural, economic and political nature.

While the limited numbers of individuals participating in most qualitative research studies is sometimes seen as a barrier to generalisation from the results, this has certainly not prevented the large number of researchers using such methods from making perceptive and highly relevant contributions to our understanding of the social dynamics of a wide range of pressing social issues. However, in the biotechnology field there is certainly scope for more research that involves multiple methods and collaboration between different researchers or research teams. Although the issues raised by attempting to combine different approaches within or across disciplines are not trivial, there already seems to be enough evidence of similar or complementary results emerging from research to encourage an optimistic view of the potential for productive developments in this direction.

4. Insights of particular relevance to the seminar

As a conditioning contextual factor, the BSE issue was found to be an important influence on public responses here in Britain to agricultural biotechnology and to the introduction of GM foods. However, there was more to public responses than BSE. The comparative analysis identified several factors that appeared to influence significantly participants' views of agricultural biotechnology across all five countries. These included:

• Perceived lack of influence and control over institutional processes or changes to their own 'life-world';
  
  
• Scepticism towards key institutions (government, business, science);
  
  
• Perceived tension between social need and commercial interests;
  
  
• Perceived speed of social/technological change and introduction of GM technology;
  
  
• Perceived long-term uncertainties over risks and consequences;
  
  
• Perceived relationships among food, health and nature/environment;
  
  
• Lifestyle orientations, including related food cultures;
  
  
• A more general sense of ambivalence towards socio-technical change.

• When discussing these issues, public views are not, in general, so polarised. People tended very often to be rather ambivalent about GM food and were often quite sophisticated in their weighing of different arguments and positions.
  
  
• There was evidence of a certain 'realism' about uncertainty - it was not necessarily seen as a sufficient reason to reject GM food but was viewed in the context of other factors.
  
  
• When people did admit to being 'scared' by the development of the technology, it was usually a reasoned rather than an irrational response.
  
  
• People tended, in fact, not to be 'irrational' at all in the positions that they took but consistent in terms of their own situated perspective.
  
  
• People did not necessarily reject unthinkingly all GM technologies; on the other hand, medical applications were not unambiguously endorsed; many people differentiated between applications, although sceptical arguments were presented about all food applications.
  
  
• It became clear that ethical concerns were not separate from the public's appraisal of GM science. Many of the apparently ethical arguments that were raised represented evaluations of the limits to science (e.g. references to scientists 'playing God', etc.).
  
  
• Many of those who voiced unequivocal opposition to GM food did so not out of ignorance but because they felt that the issues conflicted with incommensurable values that were not subject to compromise.
  
  
• Where connections were made to other issues these were generally based on perfectly 'reasonable' links or analogies.
  
  
• Finally, most people were aware of the limits of their own knowledge. They acknowledged the need for expert oversight of these issues but were concerned that the limitations of expertise should also be recognised and that wider 'non-technical' societal concerns should be considered.