ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I temper the claims that nanotechnology as a whole, and nanomedicine in particular, has provided an unprecedented opportunity for new forms of public communication and interdisciplinary dialogue with the social sciences. On the one hand, I stress that nanomedicine researchers subscribe to a classical conception of scientific communication (the need to educate the public about the possible risks and benefits of nanotechnology), and of social science expertise (the study of the social representations of technologies and the ethical and social issues involved). On the other hand, I present interdisciplinary projects that have involved nanomedicine researchers, ethicists, philosophers or sociologists, around innovative visions of interdisciplinarity. These projects have been very actively supported by funding agencies in France and the United States as well as by the European Commission. They are rooted in several approaches such as sociology of science and technology, sociology and management of innovation, ethics and philosophy of technology. I argue, however, that these very rich interdisciplinary experiments remain marginal to a dominant conception of interdisciplinarity that limits the social sciences to the study of the social acceptance of new technologies.
