Japanese STS approach to GMOs: multi-angle socio-political
and cultural-economical analysis of bio-techno-science in the East
Asian context.
Hideto Nakajima (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Togo Tsukahara (Kobe University)
and Hideyuki Hirakawa (Kyoto Women's University)
ABSTRUCT
(はじめに)
In this presentation, we would like to present the preliminary results and state
of progress of the Japanese STS Research Project on GMOs, organized in Kobe,
Japan.
This presentation has two parts:
The first part is about the outline of our project, which includes
a brief explanation of its Japanese STS context, and preliminary research results.
The second part is one exemplification of our analysis on GMO
consensus conference in 2000 held in Japan.
The first part: Outline of Kobe GMO Project, its background in Japanese STS context, and preliminary results, in East Asian Networking in particular.
This is one of the major current STS research projects in Japan, and most of
the leading scholars from the Japanese STS research community involved. In this
project, it is intended to shed new light on the controversial GMO related issues
from the view point of our discipline, namely STS, or Science and Technology
Studies. For that, this Kobe project on GMO is trying to demonstrate the scope
and perspective of GMO issue from STS viewpoints, and also trying to illustrate
the diversity of interpretations of GMOs issues within the academic STS framework.
Merit of Japan: GMO issue Casting Board Between US and Europe, and Key
Player in East Asia.
In the general perspective, with regard to GMO issue, Japanese situation is
unique. We can specify the Japanese particularity in her geographical place
that Japan situated neither a part of European direct extension nor a part of
American territories. Japan can share the socio-political similarity of Democratic,
Capitalistic nature of Highly advanced nations, yet her attitude, acceptance
and decision-making process concerning techno-science is distinctively different
from those of Euro-Americans.
From the international macro- point of view, Japanese GMO case would be able
to provide a reference point between the conflicting United States and European
Unions. In other words, the Japanese have a possibility to be able to take a
position of a sort of "casting-board" between the two conflicting
superpower groups of US and EU on this very issue.
From the semi-macro-viewpoint, namely from the regional perspective, the interests
in the GMO issues are growing among East Asian STS network. To establish East
Asian Regional networking, and to provide East Asian STS perspectives on GMO
issue is also one of the most important purposes of our project.
Process and STS Background
I would like to explain background and organization process of this project.
Kobe GMO research project is relatively new attempt. The STS activities actually
facilitated Kobe GMO research projects. In other words, Kobe GMO project was
embedded in the STS community in Japan. It was 1999, when former STSNJ activists
Togo Tsukahara and Hideyuki Hirakawa have drafted research plan on GMOs. It
was the time when both of them were appointed to the academic posts in Kansai
area of Western Japan, and they have intended to commence new STS movement in
the Western part of Japan. By the time, Japanese STS movement was dominated
by the Tokyo peers, (Nakajima's peer !!!), centered at Tokyo University. Tsukahara
and Hirakawa have then drafted 4 years' plan, and it was submitted to the Ministry
of Education in November 1999, in order to establish some sort of STS extension
to the Western Japan. Actually, the commencement of this Kobe GMO project has
come to be therefore the kick-off of the first systematic research project of
STS-ers in West Japan. The drafted research plan was submitted to the Ministry
of Education in November 1999 from Kobe University, and it was April 2000, it
was informed that the application has successfully funded 15 million yen (then
it was about 150,000 US $) for four years.
Plan 1: Research Organizations:
The organizational strategy was to create a primary basis of STS in Kobe, where
we can earn support from Kobe University Prof. Nobuo Miura, a renowned historian
of science and a virtual boss of Tsukahara, who accepted to be the representative
of Kobe GMO project. It is also our strategy to build closer linkage to Tokyo
activists, therefore, for the project, Prof. Murakami and Prof. Nakajima ("I",
if Nakajima reads this paper) were willing to join in this application. Institutionally,
and politically, the good news for us was the last election of Kobe University
presidency in 2000. For that, one of our members, Prof. Tomoyuki Nogami, a specialist
of STS education, has been elected to the President of Kobe University. As a
leading scholar in Science education, especially STS education, Prof. Nogami
expresses us his willingness of support for our activities in near future. Kobe
is becoming optimal center to carry out STS research.
Plan 2: Research Topics:
So, we have limited time and space to go into details, but the initial plan
of our research in 1999 has such line-ups of research and researchers involved: Socio-economic
analysis of GMOs, activities of Japan Monsanto and its relationship to Japanese
multi-nationals, Mitsubishi, in particular, analyzed by Hironori Ayabe; East
Asian STS Collaboration Network on GMOs research, organized by Nakajima and
Tsukahara; Consumers' movement, solidarity movement with the third world environmental
NGOs carried out by Sho Kasuga and Tsukahara; Ethical issue on GMO, research
on Bryan Wynne's works, that explore the possibilities of application of his
analysis to the Japanese case, organized by Hirakawa and Tsukahara; Regulatory
science, pesticides and other chemicals, related to GMOs, by Takako Nakajima;
Monitoring ministerial politics and consensus conference: research carried on
by Hirakawa; STS and Risk studies of GMO, networking and umbrella research group,
organized by Nobuo Miura, institutionalized at the University of Kobe.
Domestic Research Networking and Discussions on STS's Role in public decision
making.
According to the drafted plan, we have started our research projects, and we
have reached some successful results, with several modifications and amendments
according to the progress of research. First of all, office for the project
management is organized by Tsukahara and Hirakawa in West Japan, and Nakajima
and Ayabe of Tokyo. The office took initiative to have been organizing several
meetings, and the most of the leading STS scholars related to GMO research,
such as Prof. Yoshiki Otsuka of Hiroshima University of Economics, and Prof.
Makoto Hayashi of Kogakuin Univ. and new member of 4S office, Prof. Yuko Fujigaki,
are kept in touch with our network. and actively involved in our research activities.
As I discuss later today, that Hirakawa has closely monitored consensus conference
of GMO organized by Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery, which was modulated
by Prof. Tadashi Kobayashi who is also a member of our project and is currently
the President of Japanese STS Society. In December 2000, a public symposium
on GMO issue was held in Kobe, and a workshop for students' reading group of
"Science Wars" went parallel to that symposium. For the occasion,
Prof. Osamu Kanamori has been invited and become involved in our group.
As a result of our current meetings, we would like to mention one particular
aspect of our current domestic discussions, that there is a discrepancy seen
within our Japanese STS-ers. It might not be called as internal conflict yet,
but through the GMO case studies, the approaches are diverse and there are different
angles of academic analysis taken place. With regard to the limits of time and
space now, I do not go into details of this discussion, but instead, I open
the fact that we have discerned that the self-reflexive points of STS is becoming
an issue, so that some points of disagreements in Japanese STS community in
itself are gradually becoming clear through GMO research, such as: -How accountability
of STS researchers themselves is reflected; -To what degree STS can command
its social commitments and/or critical activities on governmental policy;-should
STS stay academic coolness in intellectual depth, or perform social activities;
and how should we organize future STS framework in Domestic/International sphere?
This may be characterized as high-church vs. low church division, or STS puritan
vs. applied STS, and/or so-called "commitment problematique". It is,
however, not my intention to discuss this issues of social roles and functions
of STS in itself, but at least, we can say that through GMO research, we now
realize that STS is not nothing nor mere academic ivory tower chatters, but
an emergence of such policy commitment debate can be understood that the Japanese
STS is socially influential to some degree. We think such disagreement is not
at all negative factor in our STS research community. Rather, we think otherwise:
difference in opinion within STS is the sign to widening our approach and our
future prospects.
International (East Asian) Networking.
Now I discuss how we develop our International networking, and how we came to
get connecting this topic of GMOs to the International STS societies. According
to the plan, a variety of research activities have been carried out, and how
we have dealt with the following subjects will be presented and discussed. Our
international networking is mostly focusing on our regional East Asian perspective,
but we also are interested in South and South East Asian network building on
the topic.
In the East Asian perspective, as mentioned, Nakajima ("I" again,
a bit embarrassment?) worked very hard. I have been dispatched to Korea and
China, originally through the framework of this GMO project, and with warm welcome
and hospitality, and bosom acceptance of our East Asian colleagues, his visits
to Korea and China have become one of the seed for our mutual understandings,
and it was grown to East Asian STS Workshop in Seoul, Korea, May 2001, convened
by Prof. Song Sun-Yong. It was followed by the East Asian STS/GMO Symposium
in Kobe January 2002, for which we were able to invite Korean and Taiwanese
colleagues of Prof. Song, Prof. Lee, and Prof. Fu and Prof. Lei. East Asian
Regional initiative is successful, particularly because we have succeeded in
inviting North Korean University Professor Im, and promoted dialogue between
(South) Korean STS scholars and North Korean researcher. This was certainly
one of the good example that STS community can contribute to enhance dialogue
between North and South Korean dialogue, which is thought to be the most difficult
area of current international politics..
For the further Asian network building, Tsukahara is making effort to have more
links and information exchanges with Consumer's Association of Penang and Third
World Network, Malaysia, and Visunu Foundation of Bio-Diversity in Bali, Indonesia;
Sho Kasuga, Ph.D. our collaborator and a student of Anthropology, Kyoto University,
and another active collaborator Naoko Yatani, a Ph.D. student of Hitotsubashi
University, have met Vandana Shiva and they have participated in, and observed
closely, her NGO projects in India in 2001. Yatani carried out extensive field
work on Indian agriculture and anti-GMO organic farming in 2002, with the helps
of Shiva and Indian STS leading scholars, such as Deepak Kumar.
In the activism side, recently, Hirakawa took initiative to make network with
French anti-GMO movement, and at the occasion of Jose Bove's visit in Japan,
October 2002, we had a fruitful exchange. Kyoto public meeting was organized
by Hirakawa, and Tsukahara participated as Bove's interpreter.
Second Part: Remarks and Analysis on Japanese Consensus Conference on GMO.
Now, we would like to present our provisional analysis on the GM Crops Consensus
Conference in Japan, for which one of our members, Hirakawa has closely monitored.
Process of CC
The consensus conference on GM crops (GMCs) was held by the Society for Techno-innovation
of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (STAFF), entrusted by the Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), from September to November 2000.
STAFF is a research institution for R&D and the industry-university-government
cooperation as well as PR/PA activities for biotechnology. Eighteen citizen
panelists were selected from 479 applicants through a demographically random
manner. Four meetings of citizen panel were convened, and one of our authors,
Hirakawa, attended and monitored the last two open meetings. We have acquired
most of the internal information from the facilitator of the conference, Tadashi
Kobayashi. The four meetings featured as the following themes: 1st Meeting was
on the General instruction for the conference and lecture about basic knowledge
about GMCs. This is closed meeting. The 2nd Meeting was consisted of Lectures,
and visit to research facilities, and making questionnaires, "Key Questions",
by citizen panel. This is closed as well. The 3rd Meeting is about Experts'
replies to the key questions and discussion. And The 4th Meeting was to Completing
of the final report: "Citizen's Ideas and Suggestions", and its publication
at press conference. Some of the lecturers and the expert panelists who responded
to the "Key questions" of citizen panel were invited
The steering committee of the conference included three STS scholars in Japan;
Yukio Wakamatsu and Shuichi Tsukahara. As mentioned above, Kobayashi played
the role of facilitator. They were also the members who organized previous two
consensus conferences in 1998 and 1999 in Japan. While the previous two were
informal nature, this conference was rather formal under the auspice of a government
agency.
I would like to point out that there are the four characteristics
of the Conference.
The first point is about its context, that the conference was
designed not to serve the agro-food policy, but to serve the agro-food "research"
policy. It was planned by the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Research
Council (ADDRC) of MAFF. It is conducting a research project of "Comprehensive
Study of Safety Assurance of Industrial Use of GMOs" containing a research
topic of "Research Matching up to Public's Proposals". The conference
was planned as a part of this project.
As is often the case with the nuclear power plant project and other sorts of
public construction, "participatory policy-making" held by government
often falls down upon an opportunity for public to give government an acceptance
of its plan. Therefore, it rightly considered that public is always skeptical
about the "dialogue" prepared by government. In fact, at the earlier
parts of the meetings of this conference, citizen panelists were afraid that
bureaucrats might exploit their consensus. However, it may be concluded that
this conference could avoid such misuse of public participation since the context
in which it was embedded was not that of policy-making in itself, but "research".
In this regard, it is necessary to recall that a vital function of consensus
conference is to shed light on underlying disagreements among participants and
unnoticed points to be argued in order to build up more appropriate and legitimate
framing of the issue. In short, consensus conference is an opportunity for "mutual
learning" from the difference in opinion, insight, perspective, context
of each participant, rather than tool for consensus making implied by its name.
In this sense, it is appropriate for consensus conference to be embedded in
the context of research rather than that of political decision-making.
Of course, if we seek for the possibility of such an intellectual, not political,
contributions of consensus conference, it should be hosted by some independent
sector. However, there is still a merit in hosting it by government since it
could open up further possibility to redefine the research agenda of public
sector. R&D in the field of biotechnology in particular is exclusively driven
by industrial sectors that propel the privatization and commoditization of knowledge.
In this circumstance, the direction of R&D would often be misguided into
minimizing the concerns for potential risks of technology while maximizing the
immediate industrial and economic profits. It is the role of public research
institutions that it corrects this tendency. Of course, the citizen panel of
consensus conference is not the "representative" of all publics; it
is no more than a sample. However, the "external" input from the outside
of experts community could widen the scope of problem framing that tends to
be narrowed by disciplinary or economic interests.
The second point is that there was a sharp disagreement among
expert panelists who made answers to the panel's key questions. It is the boundary
work about what is the appropriate framing the GMC's risks and benefits. On
the one hand, some of experts engaging in R&D of GMCs maintained that the
risks and benefits of GMCs ought to be evaluated independently of the socio-economic
conditions of contemporary world agro-food system. On the contrary, social scientists,
Ohtsuka, our Kobe project member and who wrote an excellent book of the sociological
studies of R&D of GMCs, and Shuji Hisano, argued that the evaluation of
GMC's risks and benefits should be situated in the context of the agro-food
system which is characterized by monoculture, excess industrialization and commoditization
of agriculture, unfair trade of foods between the south and the north, vertical
integration of agro-food system and biopiracy by multinational agribusiness,
and so on. They claimed that these conditions would not only nullify the alleged
possibility for GMC's benefits such as improvement of present agro-food system
or environmental remediation, but also amplify the socio-economic risks as well
as the environmental ones. In fact, if one sees seriously the socio-political
reality of present agro-food system, she can hardly expect that GMCs would be
a vital solution to the food shortage. Seeming hopefulness of this possibility
stems from neglect of the social reality.
It is interesting to recall that such a boundary work had been for many years
conducted in the negotiation for the Bio-safety Protocol to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD). The proponents of maximum free trade of GMOs, e.g.
USA, Canada and other countries, so-called "umbrella group", had been
trying to exclude socio-economic aspects of GMOs from the protocol, while opponents
and critics of GM free trade, e.g. developing countries (G77/Chaina), environmental
NGOs, and EU, kept calling for inclusion of that concerns to the protocol. Although
the proponents claimed that the risk assessment of GMOs should be based on so-called
"sound science", they meant by "science" only natural science.
Incidentally, in January 1999, STAFF published a recommendation to relevant
ministries that Japanese government should not allow to incorporate the consideration
for the socio-economic impacts of GMOs into the protocol ("The Recommendation
for the Bio-safety Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity",
STAFF, 22, January 1999). One reason for this was that the risk assessment ought
to be based on only (natural) scientific knowledge. Another reason was that
objective evaluation of socio-economic impacts could hardly be made because
they might differ from nation to nation. (It is noteworthy that the term "objective"
was used in very special and narrow sense.)
The reason for such a boundary work to narrow the scope of framing is not yet
clear. At international negotiation level, it is often seen that the economic
interests of biotechnology industry behind the face of science. However, in
this specific case, it is not yet clarified to what extent the scientists and
engineers who were invited to the consensus conference were motivated by industrial
interests. Rather, we guess that they may have been accustomed to a certain
style of thinking that defines the problem by quite limited number of variables
they can easily understand and control within their specialized disciplines.
Alternatively, they may feel that it is "impure" to merge social aspects
and natural scientific/technological ones. These questions must be answered
in further research.
The third point is that the panel successfully confirmed the insight of sociological PUS; lay citizens were not only sufficiently to uptake complicated technical issues but also make significant contributions to the development of scientific and technological discourse by raising some vital questions from their own standpoints, such as consumers, parents, students, or agricultural producers. Their questions could considerably succeed in widening the scope of problem framing concerning the risks and benefits of GMCs. For example, at the third meeting, an old female farmer in the citizen panel ask the one of expert panelist, vice president of the Monsanto Japan, whether the risk assessment has been made on the use of straws of GMCs for animal feeds, and, if not, whether the Monsanto had any plan to conduct it in near future. She engages in organic farming so that her concern was quite a matter of course for herself. However, the answer of the vice president was "No, not yet, and we have no plan to do test on the straws so far". Responding to this reply, the woman finally got his promise that the Monsanto would start research on the safety of straws of GMCs in near future.
Just for reference, the following list (OHP) is the key questions made by the
panel. It is quite comprehensive with respect to the scope of framing.
(以下の部分、OHPにして表示するとよい参考になると思います。もしくは、第二部の、第三点を話し出す頃、ちょっと、聞くほうも疲れだしているころかもしれないので、OHPでこれを出すと、アイキャッチャーになってよいタイミングかもしれません。けっこう、内容的に、面白いですし。)-----------------
Key Questions from Citizen's Panel, at the Japanese Consensus Conference on GMO, 2000
1. About the DNA technology:
What is the difference between GM and traditional breeding method?
(2) Why have GMCs been developed?
(3) What is the prospect for future R&D and GM food?
2. What are the benefits of DNA technology for society?
3. About the adverse effects of GMCs on the environment:
(1) Gene transfer to the relative plants.
(2) Effects on insects and other lives.
(3) Effects on human body.
(4) Effects on biodiversity.
4. About the adverse effects of GMCs on human health:
(1) Will the long-term uptake of GMCs, directly from foods or indirectly from
animal feeds, cause any effects on human and later generation?
(2) Why is the chronic toxicity test not required for the GM foods?
5. About the institutional mechanism related to GMCs:
(1) Who ought to be liable for damage of GMCs?
(2) Is present domestic and international safety control system sufficient?
(3) Is there any possibility for abuse of DNA technology? Is there any barrier
against it?
6. About the "labeling":
(1) Is it possible to indicate the purpose of genetic modification?
(2) Why is the minimum standard of GM content by percentage for labeling set
as 5%?
(3) Why is the label for the animal feeds not required?
7. About Japanese agriculture:
(1) Is it necessary for Japanese agricultural policy to introduce GMCs?
- Can it raise the degree of self-sufficiency of foods?
- Can it reduce amount of use of pesticide?
- What is the relationship between introduction of GMCs and promotion of organic
farming?
(2) Why is GM rice required now?
(3) What kind of cooperation has been established between R&D institutions
and farmers?
(4) Is domestic production sufficient for the use for animal feeds and rice
straws?
8. International issues:
(1) What are the effects of use of GMCs on the world food supply?
- Will it lead to the domination of seeds and foods by supranational agribusiness?
- Is there any problem with dealing of foods in world market economy?
- Will it widen the economic gap between the developed nations and developing
ones?
- Is it possible to guarantee the transparency of channels of distribution of
GMCs? Is it possible to trace the distribution? Can it be disclosed?
(2) How do the ways of thinking about the safety and labeling of GMCs differ
among European countries and USA?
(3) What kind of system of the patents and IPRs for rDNA technology should be
established?
9. How have Japanese government been disclosing relevant information since the
first introduction of GMCs into Japan?
-----------(OHP以上)――――――――――――
The fourth and last point is about citizens' role of reframing the issue.
The citizen panel strongly emphasized the importance of social scientific analyses
of scientific and technological issues such as GMCs in their final report, and
to a certain extent, they could share this insight with experts of STAFF. They
concluded their report as follows (transl. by the Hirakawa):
…. We recognize that it is necessary for us to acquire the social scientific
way of thinking about the risks and benefits as well as to share the information
concerning the issue, in order to realized dialogue among government, corporations
and publics. While we have learned at this conference that tools for consensus
making of society could be provided by social sciences, it seems that this recognition
is not popular in wider publics. The government should not only disclose and
disseminate the information but also promote social scientific analyses of science
and technology….
As might be expected, "social scientific analyses of science and technology"
mainly refers to STS, according to the facilitator, Kobayashi. In fact, at the
second meeting of the conference, two STS scholars, Yuko Fujigaki and Makoto
Hayashi, delivered lectures on sociological aspect of problems of GMCs. Again,
at the third meeting, two social scientists, Otsuka and Hisano, gave their answers
to panel's key questions. According to Kobayashi and some of members of citizen
panel, what was the most impressive for the panel in this conference were talks
of those social scientists. When talked with a middle-age woman after the closing
of the 4th meeting, she said that she had thought that the risk assessment was
exclusively natural scientific and technological matter and that it was very
happy for her to have learnt social scientific framing of the issue in this
conference. In this sense, the conference was a good lesson for public understanding
of "social" science as well as PUS (or PUST).
At the same time, the conference was also an opportunity for citizen panelists
to learn about "science in action". At the 4th meeting, some of panelists
stated their impression that it was very happy to know that there were still
wide disagreement among experts as to the evaluation of risks and benefits of
GMCs. They had been captured by the idea that science is unanimous discourse
and believed that controversy about GMCs' risks had been already settled. For
example, however, at the 3rd meeting, some of scientists engaging in GM R&D
explained about the concept of "substantial equivalence" that is the
most vital concept in risk assessment of GMCs, but all of the explanations were
slightly different one another.
It is unfortunate, however, that no media coverage referred to the citizen panel's
emphasis on the importance of social science and their impression on "science
in action" despite that it was stated in conclusive paragraphs of the final
report and definitely mentioned by panelists and steering committee members
at the press conference in the 4th meeting. Even at the press conference, no
reporters touched that point. It is necessary to encourage the "Media's
Understanding of Social Science" as well as its understanding of science
and technology!
On the other hand, on the side of experts, what impression each of natural scientists
who replied to panel's questions had is unknown so far and to be investigated
in future research. However, when talked with the chairperson of the board of
directors of STAFF after the 4th meeting, he stressed that social scientific
perspective was so fresh and illuminative for agro-scientists and engineers
such as himself that he deeply felt the need to incorporate those studies into
STAFF's R&D.
No matter how each expert may feel about the panel's stress on the significance
of social scientific research on GMCs, an immediate outcome of the conference,
STAFF's official request to the relevant government agencies based on panel's
final report, stressed the importance of social scientific research on GMCs.
As mentioned above, just two years ago, STAFF's position was intrinsically against
incorporating socio-economic considerations into the evaluation of risks and
benefits of GMCs. In this regard, it may safely be said that the conference
could, at least partly, make a significant contribution to changing the mind
of experts of STAFF, though we should try to find other factors that have lead
to the current situation.
However, there is still a serious but interesting gap between natural scientists
and social scientists (in this case, STS scholars). Immediately before the Lisbon
workshop, on 5 February 2001, STAFF held a symposium on the public participation
in technology assessment, based on the outcome of the consensus conference.
As representatives of steering committee of the conference, two social scientists,
Tadashi Kobayashi and Yukio Wakamatsu, and one natural scientist, Minoru Komamine,
gave their speeches. What was impressive was that Komamine evaluated the conference
from the point of view that to what degree citizen panelists could understand
the technical content of GMCs. On the contrary, criticizing "deficit model"
of PUS, Kobayashi eagerly made a point that the principal role of citizen panel
in consensus conference is not to uptake the technical content of scientific
and technological matter. According to him, it is rather experts who must learn
from the citizen's "local knowledge" and questions.
Furthermore, there seems to be also gaps between natural scientists and citizen
panel. One illustrative instance is Komamine's comment on the "modality"
of sentences in panel's final report. Here I mean by "modality" what
indicates the factual status of sentence (see B.Latour & S. Woolgar, Laboratory
Life). Style of all the sentences summarizing experts' explanation at the 3rd
meeting was "Citizen panel understood that experts claimed that….".
This suggests that the panel might recognize the experts' assertions as "opinion",
or scientific claims being yet in controversy, rather than mere explanation
of fact. Contrarily, Komamine maintained that experts' assertions were just
explanation of objective fact. In fact, however, as mentioned above, there were
considerable disagreements among experts' explanation even of basic concept
such as the substantial equivalence. While, for citizen's eyes, the voices of
scientists were never unanimous, it was just a single voice for scientists'
eyes. This is a very much interesting phenomenon that should be scrutinized
further.
STS analysis on GMO Consensus Conference.
Further research must be done in near future, and at present, we are making
preparation for hearing from citizen panelists. We also have a plan to do hearing
from experts attended the conference and relevant administrators of MAFF.
In addition, the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Research Council (ADDRC)
of MAFF has a plan to continue the research project in which the last conference
was planned and intends to incorporate social studies of GMCs and the experiments
on the participatory technology assessment into its research agenda.
Concluding Remark.
Lastly, I would like to make a short comment, that we had a previous plan to
have a presentation of this kind of discussion on the conference at 4S annual
meeting in Boston, which was not realised due to the aftermath of the September
11th and the following anthrax attack, so our Japanese delegation have withdrown
from Boston meeting. We hope no more vicious cycle of violence at all. But instead,
we would like to express our wish to explore the bright future of East Asian
STS exchange, and it will be extended to US and European STS colleague, with
further insight from closer analysis of democratic attempt of several different
forms of decision making process on GMOs. We also hope to see the establishment
of the fruitful scholarly forum of wider intellectual and cultural exchange,
rather than terror nor any execution of formal military form of violence. As
the point I mentioned above, Kobe University is becoming an active basis for
GMO and STS research in Western part of Japan. Although we do not have final
decision, but we do hope, in near future, that we could announce that we will
be hosting our next workshop on GMO and STS, with the help of our President
Nogami, at Kobe University, by our GMO research group.
(End. Draft by Togo Tsukahara, d.d. 3 November, 2002.)