Pickersgill Martyn
Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK.
J Law Biosci. 2021 Aug 16;8(2):lsaa007. doi: 10.1093/jlb/lsaa007. eCollection 2021 Jul-Dec.
This article employs the notion of 'sociotechnical imaginaries' from the discipline of science and technology studies in order to consider the role that constructions of Japan play within UK policy discourse on science, technology, and innovation. The analysis is parsed in relation to the three dominant constructions that emerged from within the discourse under study: Japan as collaborator, as comparator, and as competitor. The mentioning of Japan within policy texts seems often aimed at evoking an imaginary of an economically successful and technoscientifically inventive nation, geared up for investment and innovation. Japan was present in the texts analyzed as a country that was simultaneously the same and other to the UK: similar enough for meaningful comparisons to be made, while sufficiently different to motivate the UK to 'do better' and to galvanize symbolic and material resource to become 'more like' Japan. Thus, a sociotechnical imaginary emerged that was at once familiar to and yet also distinct from that of the UK. Sociotechnical imaginaries of other/Other nations can govern through enabling and shaping political and policy conversations, which can ultimately inflect and indeed help to determine different forms of legal and regulatory tools, processes, and discourses.
本文运用了科学技术研究学科中的“社会技术想象”概念，以探讨日本形象在英国关于科学、技术和创新的政策话语中所扮演的角色。分析围绕在所研究话语中出现的三种主要形象展开：日本作为合作者、作为比较对象以及作为竞争者。政策文本中对日本的提及，似乎常常旨在唤起一种对经济成功且技术科学创新型国家的想象，这种国家准备好进行投资和创新。在所分析的文本中，日本对于英国而言，是一个既相同又不同的国家：相似到足以进行有意义的比较，同时又差异显著，促使英国“做得更好”，并调动象征和物质资源以变得“更像”日本。于是，一种社会技术想象浮现出来，它既为英国所熟悉，又与英国的想象有所不同。对其他国家的社会技术想象能够通过促成并塑造政治和政策对话来发挥作用，而这些对话最终能够影响并实际上有助于确定不同形式的法律和监管工具、流程及话语。
