This project focuses on challenges related to science and technology that cause social disputes and frictions in the relevant communities. It highlights an often-overlooked aspect, “absence of care”, and explores the ethics and practices to address the pains that are difficult to express.
Through our research and practical application, we aim to achieve two goals:
1. to foster widespread awareness among stakeholders that the “absence of care” surrounding these issues is a social challenge that must be addressed, and
2. to make visible the community of co-players in dialogue, thereby embedding spaces for dialogue—not as a solution to sort out conflicts but as democratic spaces that embrace “unresolved differences in thought remain”—into society.
This project tries to bring practices of “care” into the domains of science and technology where it has not traditionally been discussed in that context explicitly. In particular, we focus on the circumstances that local communities face with regards to the siting, operation, and decommissioning of large-scale energy facilities, which at a glance appear to be far removed from “care.” We examine the significance and potential of “care” in these situations.
Decisions regarding such facilities tend to prioritize “public” concerns such as scientific and technical safety or economic viability, while “private” concerns such as anxiety, confusion, and uneasiness in interpersonal relationships are often neglected. “Ethics of Care” frames this as a public-private dualism pointing out that the care owed to people with regard to their confusion and uneasiness around large-scale energy projects has been separated from “public” discussion, leaving local conflicts shrouded and systematically set aside.
The concept of a Caring Democracy, advocated for by American political theorist Joan Tronto, seeks to position “care” not as a private concern but at the core of democratic society. By acknowledging mutual vulnerability and interdependence and fostering responsive, equitable relationships, the very fabric of public space can be reconstructed. Accordingly, this project treats dialogue not as a means for immediate solutions but as a practice to be socially embedded, allowing participants a space where “unresolved differences in thought remain.”
From this viewpoint, we start with first carefully describing experiences where underlying difficulties in expression exist in the context of both local and technical communities. Furthermore, inspired by emotional and relational uneasiness, we explore new forms of dialogue that cannot be fully achieved by traditional explanatory or consensus-driven approaches.
At the heart of this are concrete dialogue practices including dialogue within facility-hosting communities, in urban areas, and among people with differing positions and values. By moving between theory and practical application, we aim to investigate what kinds of forums for dialogue can be truly responsive.
It is important to note that this project does not aim to advocate for the continued use of nuclear power, improve operations of related organizations, or ensure their sustainability. Nor does it attempt to simplify conflicts surrounding facilities related to science and technology into a simple for-or-against dichotomy. Rather, it seeks to carefully listen to diverse positions, experiences, as well as hard-to-express pains and anxieties, in its search for a society in which sustainable and open forums for dialogue are constantly maintained.
