Expertise for the good? Experts and technoscience governance in turbulent times

The problem of expertise has recently received renewed attention, rediscussing the scientific boundaries and political meanings of authoritative knowledge. Debates on ‘post- truth’, the rise of AI, the polarization occurred in the Covid-19 crisis or on climate change – just to mention a few – are not only the sign of a reconfiguration in the public perception of expert authority but speaks of new trading zones and practices of co-production investing the knowledge and power nexus, where normative and technical dimensions are embedded. The question of the ‘good’ takes on specific connotations when at stake is not science but expertise, that is, the application of scientific knowledge to questions and goals set by a principal, or a client. Likewise, the boundaries and relationships between formally recognized competences and between these and lay local experience and insight becomes more tangled, as at stake is not just an (alleged) ‘general interest’ but the positionality of the parties involved in an issue. Modern science was born out of the claim that the ‘true’ and the ‘good’ could and should be kept separate. Yet, as the case for ‘post-normal science’ (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993) argues, the very capacity of technoscience to even more affect social and biophysical processes, the growing uncertainty with which it is confronted make this separation increasingly difficult and controversial - perhaps undesirable, or not? As its alleged ‘crisis’ (Eyal 2019) highlights, the field of expertise puts in an especially sharp light the issue of how to handle technoscience in a socio- material world whose growing turbulence stems to a significant extent from technoscience itself. In the framework of the idea of ‘technoscience for good’, we therefore welcome contributions theoretically or empirically grounded (in such fields as AI, climate, biomedicine, digital-molecular agriculture, etc.) aimed at deepening and updating the reflection over expertise. Relevant topics include but are not limited to: • Definitions of and distinctions between science and expertise • Expertise and technocratic vs. participatory governance of innovation • New challenges for science and expertise over emergent technoscientific controversies • Expertise, post-truth and science deconstruction • Expertise as a new form of contentious politics: the role of social movements, grassroots organisations, NGOs, and concerned publics in the social shaping and co- production of technoscientific expertise • The rise of ‘automated expertise’ and struggles to democratize artificial intelligence • Scientists and experts vis-à-vis issues of trust, authoritativeness and responsibility • Expertise and conflicts over nature: new socio-ecological paradigms, expertise and the redefinition of environmental problems • How open-endedness, unpredictability and the breakdown of sharp distinctions between human agent and reality acted upon in a growing number of fields affect the application of expertise • How growing claims for an approach to the world based on a logic of care versus a logic of control affects the understanding of expertise and its social role