Technological modifications of food are being marketed as novel products that will enhance consumer choice and nutritional value. A recent manifestation is nanotechnology, entering the global food chain through food production, pesticides, vitamins, and food packaging. This article presents a detailed literature review on risk and benefit perceptions of technological developments for food and agriculture, including our own research from US deliberative workshops on nanotechnologies. The article suggests that many of the public concerns discussed in the literature on biotechnology in food are being raised in qualitative and quantitative studies on nanotechnologies for food: although nanotechnologies are generally perceived to be beneficial, many people express particular uneasiness about nanotechnological modifications of food. The article argues that these concerns represent material examples of unresolved social issues involving technologies and the food industry, including questions about the benefits of nanotechnology for food, and the heightened values attached to food as a cultural domain.
From Biotech to Nanotech
Public Debates about Technological Modifi cation of Food
Jennifer B. Rogers-Brown, Christine Shearer, and Barbara Herr Harthorn
Networked Technologies as Sites and Means of Nonviolence
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Laurel Hart, Pamela Lamb, and Joshua Cader
“A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” (hereinafter, the primer). In the future world of The Diamond Age , nanotechnology and atomic manipulation are commonplace and resources are abundant. However, extreme class difference is perpetuated by corporate
Laurent Berger
technological and organizational innovations, particularly in urban planning, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, renewable energy, nuclear fusion, and ecosystems protection programs. The contemporary development of carbon capture/storage and
Environmental Expertise as Group Belonging
Environmental Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies
Rolf Lidskog and Göran Sundqvist
. Ravetz . 1993 . “ Science for the Post-normal Age ”. Futures 25 ( 7 ): 739 – 755 . Giddens , Anthony . 1990 . The Consequences of Modernity . Cambridge : Polity . Gould , Kenneth A. 2015 . “ Slowing the Nanotechnology Treadmill: Impact
