#42 Economies Of Openness: Ros Attenborough On Cultures Of Trust, Exclusion & Generosity In STS

The Familiar Strange

"All of these questions deserve...just that little bit extra thought about what would openness look like for my study and in my discipline? What would it achieve? What effects would it have? And you know that when you have research interview data it's never going to be as simple as just 'publishing it on the internet'. There are all the ethical considerations" This episode 6 of our STS season, Rosalind Attenborough, who is currently completing her PhD at the Science, Technology and Innovation Studies centre at The University of Edinburgh, talks with our own Julia Brown. Having done her undergraduate training at the ANU, Ros worked for PLoS journals, before retraining in the social studies of science at University College London and then University of Edinburgh. Since 2015, she has been researching how scientists view the idea of scientific openness, which she has explored through numerous interviews with scientists, and policymakers and advocates. As you are about to hear, the meaning of openness in science is multidimensional and is becoming an increasingly critical topic. Openness in science can refer to open access publishing, open methods and data, and interpersonal openness. Ros explains what has driven open access policy changes in the UK in particular, the funding inequality this produces, and cultures of value and trust economies in science. Ros encourages us to consider the question of openness in ethnographic methods. As a case study of cultural influences on openness, Ros and Julia contemplate the CRISPR-baby scandal. DISCLAIMER: Ros, nor Julia, know much about the technicalities of the CRISPR case, they were merely discussing it as a way into thinking about cultural differences in value when it comes to ethical codes of scientific conduct. For the list of our links and citations used in this episode, head over to our website https://thefamiliarstrange.com/ This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association. If you'd like to support The Familiar Strange, you can find our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com Shownotes by Julia Brown and Deanna Catto