Trading Zones

Peter Galison used the metaphor of a trading zone to explain how theoretical physicists, experimentalists, instrument makers, and engineers collaborate on technologies such as radar, even though they come from apparently incommensurable paradigms. The notion of “incommensurable paradigms” comes from Thomas S. Kuhn, who proposed that science evolves by discarding old paradigms in favor of new ones. During a paradigm shift, those who still operate in the old paradigm cannot understand key aspects of the new one. For example, Albert Einstein's special relativity created a new paradigm in which the distinctions between space and time and mass and energy disappeared, which made it almost impossible for those in the old paradigm to understand Einstein's universe—indeed, it took about five years for signs of acceptance to emerge in the relevant physics community, according to Gerald James Holton.

But Galison noted that experimental and instrumental developments are not stopped by these paradigmatic incommensurabilities, despite profound differences in the communities involved. Scientists and engineers working on new particle detectors, or radar, were behaving like different cultures that meet for the first time: in order to exchange, they formed local trading zones where participants could exchange knowledge, time, resources, and credit in order to achieve common goals. Each participant in a trading zone can attach a different significance to the goods traded and received, as long as they agree on the terms. Therefore, those in different expertise communities do not need to completely understand each others paradigms in order to communicate and exchange ideas, but, according to Peter Galison, “they can come to a consensus about the procedure of exchange, about the mechanisms to determine when goods are ‘equal’ to one another. They can even both understand that the continuation of the exchange is a prerequisite to the survival of the larger community of which they are part.”

Multiple disciplines involved in developing new nanotechnolgies might begin with apparently incommensurable views of the nanotechnology frontier at a paradigmatic level, they could work together in trading zones at a more local level, perhaps as part of a U.S. National Science Foundation nanotechnology center grant that requires an ethics component. Here, the exchange might involve nanoscientists carving out a portion of their budget for ethics, but trying to allocate as little as possible. The ethicists might in turn value their time more highly, and push for more resources. This kind of simple exchange requires no shared meaning, and only the simplest shared language—enough to, for instance, coordinate a series of ethics seminars, and decide who should attend them.

These initial exchanges include knowledge as well as resources and time, and this knowledge exchange [Page 768]could eventually lead to a situation where scientists and ethicists in this zone could learn enough of a common language to acknowledge and even accommodate each others' perspectives and method.

A trading zone can remain a multidisciplinary exchange, but it can also evolve into an interdisciplinary collaboration that might, in turn, lead to a new expertise embodied in a new discipline. Future research should focus on developing techniques for graphing trajectories in trading zones, permitting comparison, and capturing lessons learned from both successful and unsuccessful collaborations.

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