Paper long abstract:

Processes of scientific change have been analysed using a variety of approaches within STS and allied fields. Often, empirical accounts of the success of new fields and new communities are provided to evidence theories of change. We usually hear less about characteristics such as stumbling and failure in these processes. In this paper I investigate the tenuous character of socio-technical change using the case of synthetic biology in the UK. From 2007 to date, a multi-sited ethnography tracing the emergence of the ostensibly new field has yielded insight on the mundane and everyday aspects of certain forms of change. From that corpus of data, a picture of a determined yet precarious field is evident, one that is actively constructing futures, with heavy political oversight.

What roles do institutional and individual motivations play in the pursuit or otherwise of future-building in the synbio case? what are the implications of organisational forms and research policy on the success (or not) of building a stable field? The paper contributes to ongoing theorising and evidence-gathering around the emergence and maintenance of new scientific fields and communities.