ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book includes a methodology of ‘insertion’, essentially an ethnographic approach but includes a diagnosis of what was happening in and around nanotechnology. It continues a micro- and meso-anthropological focus when looking at nanotechnologists working with folk theories about what is happening. The book offers a diagnosis of what was happening at the time, and expands it in more general terms as a changing division of moral labour. It focuses on the overall approach of Constructive Technology Assessment in the collection. The book describes a broader message, in addition to its story about the life and times of nanotechnology and its governance. In the broadest sense of the concept of governance, all structuring of action and interaction that has some authority and/or legitimacy counts as governance.
