The objective of this workshop is to look at the concept of Scarcity - or the predicted rates of resource depletion- through the critical stance of social and political analysis. The aims of debate will be to develop approaches to understanding scarcity that avoid the assumptions commonly repeated in natural-science or economic methodologies that scarcity is a uniform and inherently measurable thing, but instead rooted in social and political practices. The workshop will aim, however, to gain uniform principles about the deliberative institutions that govern the experience or, and adaptation to scarcity in developing countries. By so doing, the workshop will contribute to general debates concerning Science in Society by seeking to develop institutional approaches to the prediction and experience of biophysical scarcity, which will provide alternatives to existing scientific and technological practices in development policy. |
