Popularizing dissent: A civil society perspective.

This article theorizes civil society groups' attempts to popularize opposition to genetic modification in New Zealand as deliberative interventions that seek to open up public participation in science-society governance. In this case, the popularization strategies were designed to intensify concerns about social justice and democratic incursions, mobilize dissent and offer meaningful mechanisms for navigating and participating in public protest. Such civic popularization efforts, we argue, are more likely to succeed when popularity and politicization strategies are judiciously integrated to escalate controversy, re-negotiate power relations and provoke agency and action.

Christian lay understandings of preimplantation genetic diagnosis.

Focus groups were used to analyse Christian lay public understanding of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a relatively new biomedical practice. The paper explores how this often controversial genetic technology was contextualised and interpreted through the intersection of religious values and beliefs, secular and cultural knowledges, and lived experience and emotion. For the lay people in our study, PGD often created moral dilemmas that could not necessarily be resolved through Christian beliefs and teaching, but which required the expression of empathy and compassion. The findings emphasise the heterogeneity in individuals' interpretations of scientific issues and reinforce the need to consider public understanding of science and technology in terms of public concerns and meaning.