Dissertation: Hoe milieukunde geschiedenis werd
New book on the history of environmental science:
"Hoe milieukunde geschiedenis werd - demarcatie van een maatschappelijk relevante wetenschap 1970-2000"
(HOW DUTCH ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BECAME HISTORY
Demarcation of a socially relevant science 1970 – 2000)
De academische zitting vindt plaats op 18 juni en begint om 13.30 uur in de Aula Major van de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, Comeniuslaan 2, Nijmegen. Te zijnertijd zal de handelseditie van mijn proefschrift verkrijgbaar zijn via de boekhandel (ISBN 90 5710 155 6).
English summary available in "Read more" below.
-
Read more:
HOW DUTCH ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BECAME HISTORY Demarcation of a socially relevant science 1970 – 2000
Summary
The main subject of this book is the boundary work carried out by a group of Dutch scientists who demarcate their activities in regard to environmental problems. What is referred to as ‘milieukunde’ in the Netherlands can be translated here as 'environmental science'. However, according to Dutch practitioners of the discipline, the nature and scope of this field do not really compare to environmental scientific activities done elsewhere. In the past, Dutch environmental scientists claimed that they possessed a rather unique national identity and that they had an internal coherence for their particular field of science. According to them, Dutch environmental science should be distinguished by its holistic and interdisciplinary approach to environmental problems.
As was the case in many other countries during the early 1970s, Dutch scientists from various disciplinary backgrounds were spurred on by the rise of environmentalism to tackle environmental issues. Several scientists shared their concerns in a broad coalition which was aimed at 'improving' scientific activities. At all Dutch universities, the mobilisation of scientists transformed local academic practices and knowledge into something which enjoyed much more widespread acceptance. It also led to the institutionalisation of a field of scientific practices (milieukunde or what have I translated as ‘environmental science’) set apart from several other specialized fields such as environmental chemistry or environmental biology. This demarcation is not recognized in other countries, where the different specialities co-exist as environmental studies or environmental sciences (note the plural).
This thesis shows that diverse actors and agencies have played a crucial role in the demarcation and institutionalisation of 'Dutch environmental science' as an interdisciplinary field which has subsequently been deemed as a field which can be separated from other specialised fields of environmental sciences, while at the same time also remaining distinct from the field of environmental policy itself. Based on this perspective, I introduce in Chapter one the depiction of Dutch environmental science with its distinct boundaries and reveal how it is the result of discursive strategies of 'boundary work'. During the period between 1970-2000, Dutch environmental science became demarcated – and eventually de-institutionalised – alongside the rise of new environmental movements and the two new areas of policy, namely 'environmental policy' and 'science policy'. Apart from the environmental scientists themselves, the actors who were either involved in science policy or environmental policy were both to play a crucial role in this demarcation.
Since 1971, the point of departure for scientific activities has been environmental issues such as social problems, and it was not primarily scientific curiosity as was supposed to be the case in 'common' science. Social problems were thought to require a new scientific approach in order to overcome the shortsighted disciplinary scope. Moreover, scientific activities first and foremost were aimed at contributing to the solution of these social environmental problems, instead of the progress and innovation of science. This aim to achieve a societal relevance for the scientific activities conducted, brought on the 'double' boundary work carried out by the new environmental scientists. On the one hand, Dutch environmental science had to be effectively demarcated from other scientific activities and on the other, it needed to be separate from policy responsibility environmental management. The demarcation between Dutch environmental science and other scientific activities implied the scientific legitimacy of Dutch environmental science and the claim to having its own identity compared to other sciences. The boundary work carried out in Dutch environmental science and policy concerned paradoxically the autonomy on the one hand and the practical utility or policy relevance on the other.
The boundary work, which concerns Dutch environmental science, met both sciences and policy (e.g. Gieryn 1999). The boundary work can be characterised by its orientation to social (environmental) problems and by its criticism on what was predominantly seen as 'common' science and its relation to society. Dutch environmental science cannot just be understood as a search for 'alternative' science’. The demarcation of Dutch environmental science has been an ongoing struggle between different discourses about the contribution of science to the solution of environmental issues in society. Its history deserves to be studied against the backdrop of the wider STS debates concerning old and new knowledge production and what we believe concerning what knowledge will be desirable in our (future) society. From several perspectives, Dutch environmental science can be understood as a new science, one which may be typically contemporary and in some cases even transitory. This same issue is discussed in the final two chapters of this thesis.
The conceptual framework, which has been used, is revealed in Chapter two. It brings together the concept of boundary work from science studies (e.g. Gieryn 1995) and the particular version of discourse analysis, which is used in policy sciences (e.g. Hajer 1995). Boundary work studies focus on strategies by which science is demarcated from non-science in specific settings or by which a particular scientific field is demarcated as a shared object of study – 'boundary objects' - and hence distinguished from other scientific objects. However, science studies pay little theoretical attention to the configuration and function of discourses in such contexts. Discourses could possibly offer an interpretative framework and intellectual context for story lines. Discourse analysis aims to capture how disciplinary or social problems are represented and how particular definitions – and boundaries – of these problems are produced and reproduced, subsequently in the process they become more dominant. The representation and demarcation of ‘Dutch environmental science’ can therefore be fruitfully analysed by combining concepts from both boundary work studies and discourse analysis.
The concepts of 'boundary objects' and 'story lines' help to operationalise these two approaches. Hajer defines story lines as: 'crisp generative statements that bring together previously unrelated elements of discourse and thus allow for new understandings and create new meanings' (Hajer 1999: 4). Story lines therefore allow actors to give meaning to specific problems and in this way they reduce discursive complexity. However, this does not mean that the problem definition is coherent. However, it is possible that although actors share a specific set of story lines, they can still have their own interests and their own interpretations regarding the significance of these story lines. Unfortunately, Hajer is not always precise in the use of his terminology. Hence, I can best clarify the function of story lines by supplying the definition of 'boundary-objects':
'plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual site use. The object may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation' (Star & Griesemer 1989: 393).
Story lines may be seen as discursive examples of boundary-objects. Environmental science can be seen as a story line mobilised by various scientific and other actors who are trying to define a new shared object of theory and practice, while simultaneously allowing for diverse interpretations of their object in education and research.
When viewed from this perspective, the activities of environmental scientists can be studied, in particular when working together towards the advancement of environmental science and the ways in which common ideas can be put into practice. My empirical work begins with story lines and the way they are used (discursively) by environmental scientists. The story line 'environmental science' is considered to be the moving spirit behind the discursive mobilisation and selection of actors revolving around it.
From the story line of Dutch environmental science, I am able to distinguish three different connotations in the third chapter, which deals with methodology. These connotations have been used more or less chronologically, but they also shift and overlap. They emphasize respectively a scientific environmental concern, the scientific identification and legitimacy, and the contribution of Dutch environmental science to environmental sciences. The development and impact of these connotations are analysed in the following three empirical chapters. In these chapters I analyse the boundary work strategies involved in the production, reproduction and shifts of the story line Dutch environmental science. Strategy reports, teaching manuals and the archived minutes of the national community of the scientists involved represent empirical sources in which tacit assumptions about the contents of this new science have become explicit. In addition to an analysis of these written documents, key actors have been interviewed and relevant secondary literature about science, society and policy has been consulted.
Chapter four describes how 'the environment' emerged as a public issue, posing apparently intractable challenges to both science and politics during the early 1970s. Scientists and other civilians recognised the need for suitable knowledge for these societal problems and for a different, less introvert and more democratic, production of knowledge. However, their criticism on science did not undermine their general trust in the academic world's grip on knowledge production. Therefore, when a few Dutch scientists assumed responsibility for the scientific contribution to the solution of environmental problems, they used their established position and reputation in academia in order to initiate Dutch environmental science.
During the 1970s, environmental problems in general were made the subject of their scientific activities. In educational programmes, environmental scientists introduced students to all aspects, from the physical to the psychological aspects of environmental problems and they drew their attention to the necessity of an unconventional, interdisciplinary approach to these complex problems. Their aim was that students and scientists concern themselves with environmental problems and that they themselves would try to understand them and provide a disciplinary contribution to general solutions. These Dutch scientists established new organisations of academic departments for Dutch environmental science education and research. In various research programmes and projects they focused on existing local and physical environmental problems. In doing so, they often supported environmental activists and sometimes they underpinned environmental policy. However, their attempts to understand the causes and structural solutions of environmental problems were not always appreciated by environmental policymakers who were primarily interested in the lessening the effects. These policymakers became better informed, receiving their information from such experts as (eco)toxicologists, biologists and medical scientists.
Chapter five illustrates how in the early 1980s Dutch environmental scientists claimed much more than they had done before that their activities were of a scientific and almost a disciplinary character. They stressed that although environmental science was still a relatively new field, its scientific potential had not yet been fully developed. They reproduced their holistic perspectives of the scientific, but their often-disciplinary contribution to environmental problems, which had been developed during the 1970s, was published in a handbook. Environmental scientists realised that their concern with environmental issues alone was not enough to demarcate their activities from others. The discussion concerning a shift in focus from environmental problems to solutions fell into abeyance. The alternative was to focus on interdisciplinarity in theories and methods. In the handbook and elsewhere, a plea was made for a recognisable identity and an interdisciplinary body of knowledge of Dutch environmental science. Interdisciplinarity became the key story line that demarcated and constituted Dutch environmental science.
Scientists debated and philosophised about the constitution of interdisciplinary theories and methods, whereas educational and research practices hardly changed. Environmental scientists demarcated and institutionalised the scientific identity in a (Dutch) scientific journal, a professional association and succeeded in securing their own funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environmental Management became more interested in Dutch environmental science. It invested in research and professional education, in institutes, publications and chairs. With these investments the Ministry indirectly tried to steer the development of Dutch environmental science.
Chapter six illustrates how attention was paid to the scientific development of Dutch environmental science which finally led to the fragmentation and marginalisation of environmental science. The first time these developments became visible was, quite paradoxically, during the preparation of a research programme in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The research programme 'Sustainability and Environmental Quality' (SEQ) was formulated. It was explicitly intended to stimulate theoretically fundamental research in Dutch environmental science, in contradiction with the traditions of the NSF so far.
The preparation of the research programme started in the late 1980s in close co-operation between Dutch environmental scientists, the NSF and the Ministry of Education and Sciences. During the preparation, however, the focus shifted from Dutch environmental science to the relationship and cooperation between Dutch environmental science and the environmental sciences. However, in the end, the programme erased the story line of Dutch environmental science and instead it categorised and demarcated most of the work of these scientists as ‘social science’.
The contents of the research programme clearly referred to environmental policy. The programme used policy concepts such as sustainability and environmental quality, and applied them to similar topics such as material flows and chain analysis. These topics were directly derived from the policy perspectives and ambitions of the first National Environmental Policy Plan, according to the opinion of the scientists involved. However, environmental policymakers found such work to be of limited use.
In the 1990s, interdisciplinarity became obsolete and was no longer used as a demarcation criterion and inherent in Dutch environmental science. The interdisciplinary ambitions of environmental science could be found in the co-operation between Dutch environmental scientists and other (environmental) scientists. Methods such as modelling and system analyses were intended to bring the disciplinary contributions together. They cooperated in the area of themes, which were traced to environmental policy, such as material flows in the consumption society. These themes were further selected in the preparation and foundation of the research school Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE), which brought (part of the) environmental scientists together. The definition of research themes and methods implied the selection of participants among Dutch environmental scientists. In 1994 only four out of ten institutes became a member of SENSE. It was the first time that the Dutch environmental science institutes explicitly went their own way and that they did not form a single close coalition. In the 1990s the hitherto successful boundary-work concerning a unified environmental science eventually broke down and the notion of a plural collection of different environmental sciences gained ground.
Chapter seven summarises and re-interprets the development of the story line Dutch environmental science by structuring the history around three themes, which have returned during the past thirty years: environmental problems, science for environmental problems and socially relevant science. Discourses concerning these themes are described in the second half of this chapter and are based on and familiar with those described by other authors. The discourse analysis articulates the pluriformity and the incoherence of ideas in the discursive history of Dutch environmental science. This perspective of the history of Dutch environmental science is a different from the one held by the few Dutch environmental scientists, who had divided the history of Dutch environmental science into periods. They had been involved in Dutch environmental science activities and they seemed to be driven by clarification, finalisation and the uni-linearity of their scientific history. In this book I have tried to sketch the development of their activities in a more distinctive and more differentiated way.
In the final chapter I reflect on the conceptual framework and methodology used and I discuss the meaning of the history of Dutch environmental science based on the background of the recent debates concerning science and society. These debates intent a deliberate and explicit communication for the relationship between (scientific) knowledge production and society & policy, resulting in an emphatic and explicit variety in knowledge production. Many authors distinguish between different kinds of preferable knowledge production, which have all emphasised other aspects of the same utopia. They focus on the nature and aims of knowledge production, the preferable nature of knowledge and the knowledge producers involved and they emphasise the nature of researchable problems, the context of knowledge production or the public or policy participation in knowledge production. Too many of their publications outline a contrast between what is whether or not societal considered knowledge production and what it should be; and they pay hardly any attention to the ways in which new knowledge production can be realised or how operational practices of knowledge production are achieved.
This contrast appears to be quite removed from the demarcation that, as I described, implies progressive as well as conservative arguments of knowledge production by Dutch environmental scientific activities. In several aspects, Dutch environmental science can be viewed as a development towards gaining new knowledge production, but also in building contrary arguments, discourses and developments concerning the production and legitimisation of knowledge, which are at stake. This type of differentiated description of contemporary practices of knowledge production occurring either inside or outside the academic environment could provide a more sophisticated point of departure for a renewed debate concerning socially relevant knowledge production, instead of the all too often cited utopias.