ABSTRACT

While the tech sector has seized upon the food system as an area in which it can have a major impact, innovators within the agri-food tech domain are dogged by concerns about public acceptance of technologies that may be controversial or simply not of interest. At the same time, because they operate within an investor-dependent political economy, they must demonstrate that the public will consume the products they are creating. To both secure markets and legitimate their approaches to problem-solving, entrepreneurial innovators draw on three existing imaginaries of consumers, each of which articulates with a particular tendency they have pursued in problem-solving. Reflecting a tendency of solutionism, those promoting technologies that promise minimal processing and/or short or traceable supply chains invoke a health- and eco-conscious consumer. In keeping with technofixes, those promoting technologies of mimicry invoke a complacent consumer. Reflecting the tendency toward scientism in problem-solving and related projections of public knowledge deficits, those promoting potentially controversial technologies invoke a fearful consumer and embrace transparency to inform and assure such consumers. By promising future consumers who will willingly accept emerging technologies, each of these imaginaries seeks to resolve – for investors – potential problems of consumer acceptance generated by the particular approaches to problem-solving innovators have adopted. While STS scholars have shown how public-facing engagement exercises and policy work are often limited by deficit-driven imaginaries of the public, in these investor-facing spaces possible objections are both imagined and overcome without any interaction with actual publics.

摘要

虽然科技行业已将食品系统作为一个可以产生重大影响的领域，但农业食品技术领域的创新者却担心公众会接受可能有争议或根本不感兴趣的技术。同时，由于他们在依赖投资者的政治经济中运作，他们必须证明公众会消费他们创造的产品。为了确保市场安全并使他们解决问题的方法合法化，企业家创新者利用三种现有的消费者想象，每一种都表达了他们在解决问题时所追求的特定趋势。反映解决方案主义趋势的是，那些推广承诺最少加工和/或短或可追溯供应链的技术会唤起具有健康和生态意识的消费者。为了与技术修复保持一致，那些推广模仿技术的人会招致自满的消费者。反映解决问题和相关公共知识缺陷预测的科学主义趋势，那些推广可能有争议的技术的人会引起恐惧的消费者，并拥抱透明度来告知和保证这些消费者。通过向愿意接受新兴技术的未来消费者承诺，这些想象中的每一个都试图为投资者解决由创新者采用的解决问题的特定方法所产生的消费者接受度的潜在问题。虽然 STS 学者已经表明，面向公众的参与活动和政策工作通常如何受到公众赤字驱动的想象的限制，