Dr Chris Groves

A philosopher and social scientist by training, my interest in the future takes two forms: first, how people and organisations make sense of and try to domesticate an inherently uncertain future; second, the ethical and political significance of their efforts.

For example, I’m interested in how organisations and other actors, by defining the future using the technical concepts of risk analysis, help to exclude from consideration other, deeper uncertainties and areas of ignorance. Concentrating, for instance, on assessing quantifiable risks in planning disputes about hazardous infrastructure ignores vulnerabilities that can’t be so easily assessed (such as people’s attachments to the places they inhabit, and the psychological consequences of disrupting them). Moreover, concentrating on the quantifiable, tangible and known tends to discount the value and significance of longer-term consequences.

A managerial, risk-based view of the future therefore has the ethical and political effect not only of contributing to oppressing the agency of marginalised groups, but also of obstructing or eroding our capacity to care about and recognise our relationship to the longer-term future.

Participating in the Future Matters Collective enables me to work with colleagues whose diverse ways of understanding (and making) futures expand and enhance my own perspective by taking me beyond familiar ways of thinking.

BOOKS

  1. C. Groves (2014) Care, Uncertainty and Intergenerational Ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan (http://bit.ly/1z7aJGz).
  2. B. Adam & C. Groves (2007) Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill. (http://bit.ly/1CreCxB).

 

ARTICLES

  1. G. Thomas, C. Groves, K. Henwood, F. Shirani and N. Pidgeon (in press) Texturing waste: attachment and identity in every-day consumption and waste practicesEnvironmental Values.
  2. C. Groves, (2016) Emptying the future: on the environmental politics of anticipationFutures, DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2016.06.003.
  3. C. Groves, K. Henwood, C. Butler, F. Shirani, K. Parkhill, and N. Pidgeon (2016) The grit in the oyster: using energy biographies to question socio-technical imaginaries of ‘smartness’Journal of Responsible Innovation, 3(1), pp. 4–25.
  4. C. Groves, K. Henwood, C. Butler, F. Shirani, K. Parkhill, and N. Pidgeon (2016) Invested in unsustainability? On the psychosocial patterning of engagement in practicesEnvironmental Values 25(3), pp. 309–328.
  5. G. Di Giulio, C. Groves, M. Monteiro, and R. Taddei (2016) Communicating through vulnerability: towards a cross-cultural understanding of responsiveness in responsible research and innovation (RRI)Journal of Responsible Innovation, DOI: 10.1080/23299460.2016.1166036.
  6. Groves, C., K. Henwood, C. Butler, F. Shirani, K. Parkhill, and N. Pidgeon (2016).
  7. C. Groves (2015) The bomb in my backyard, the serpent in my house: environmental justice, risk and the colonisation of attachmentEnvironmental Politics, 24(6), pp. 853–873.
  8. A. Corner and C. Groves (2014) Breaking the climate change communication deadlockNature, 4, pp. 743–745.
  9. C. Groves, S. Pahl, S. Sheppard, & C. Boomsma, (2014) Perceptions of time in relation to climate change,Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 5, pp. 375–388.
  10.  C. Groves (2013) Road-maps and revelations: on the somatic ethics of genetic susceptibilityNew Genetics and Society, 32(3), pp. 264–284.
  11. C. Groves & R. Tutton (2013) Walking the tightrope: expectations and standards in personal genomics,Biosocieties 8, pp. 181–204.
  12. C. Groves, M, Munday and N. Yakovleva (2013) Fighting the Pipe: neo-liberal governance and barriers to effective community participation in energy infrastructure planningEnvironment and Planning C, 31(1), pp. 340–356.
  13. C. Groves (2011) The Political Imaginary of Care: Generic versus Singular FuturesJournal of International Political Theory, 7(2), pp. 165–189.
  14.  B. Adam and C. Groves (2011) Futures Tended: Care and Future-Oriented ResponsibilityBulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 31(1), pp. 17–27.
  15.  C. Groves (2010) The public perception of nanotechnology: is it all about risk?, NanotechnologyPerceptions, 6(2), pp. 85–94.
  16.  C. Groves (2009) Nanotechnology, Contingency and FinitudeNanoethics, 3 (1), pp. 1–16.
  17.  C. Groves (2009) Future Ethics: Risk, Care and Non-Reciprocal ResponsibilityJournal of Global Ethics, 5 (1), pp. 17–31 (published in tandem with a response by Professor Robin Attfield, Department of Philosophy, Cardiff).
  18.  C. Groves (2007) The Humanities and the Shaping of Social FuturesThe International Journal of the Humanities, 5(4), pp. 49–54.
  19.  C. Groves (2006). Technological Futures and Non-Reciprocal ResponsibilityThe International Journal of the Humanities, 4 (2), pp. 57–61 (Awarded the International Award for Excellence in the Humanities 2006).

 

BOOK CHAPTERS

  1. K. Konrad, C. Groves, C. Selin, and H. van Lente (in press) Performing and Governing the Future in Science and TechnologyHandbook of Science and Technology Studies (4th edn), MIT Press.
  2. C. Groves (2016) Care and technoscience: re-embedding the futures of innovation, in Diana Bowman, Arie Rip and Elen Stokes (eds.), Embedding and Governing New Technologies: A Regulatory, Ethical & Societal Perspective, Pan Stanford (in press).
  3. C. Groves (2013) Horizons of Care: from Future Imaginaries to Responsible Research and Innovation, in Kornelia Konrad, Christopher Coenen, Anne Dijkstra, Colin Milburn, and Harro van Lente (eds.), Shaping Emerging Technologies: Governance, Innovation, Discourse, Berlin: IOS Press/AKA, pp. 185–202.
  4. A. Grinbaum & C. Groves (2013) What is ‘Responsible’ about Responsible Innovation? Understanding the Ethical Issues, in John Beasant, Maggy Heintz and Richard Owen, eds, Responsible Innovation, John Wiley & Sons.
  5.  C. Groves (2010) Living in Uncertainty: The Limits of Risk Thinking, in Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination, ed. Stefan Skrimshire, London: Continuum.
  6.  C. Groves (2010) The Futures of Causality: Hans Jonas and Gilles Deleuze, in Causality and Motivation, ed. Roberto Poli, Ontos Verlag.

 

OTHER MEDIA

  1.  C. Groves, Henwood, K., Shirani, F. and Pidgeon, F. (2016) Using less energy: why do we say one thing and do another?, The Conversation UK, June 17. Online at https://theconversation.com/using-less-energy-why-do-we-say-one-thing-but-do-another-49610.  
  2. C. Groves (2014) Environmental policy must embrace uncertaintyThe Conversation UK, March 7. Online at https://theconversation.com/environment-policy-must-embrace-uncertainty-23269.
  3. C. Groves (2011) Happiness and UncertaintyOpenDemocracy, 29 June 2011,http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/chris-groves/happiness-and-uncertainty.
  4.   C. Groves, K. Henwood, R. Murphy, F. Shirani, B. Gaver (2014) A Sense of Energy, Research Exhibition, The White Building (Hackney, London), 23–24 June and The Senedd, Cardiff, 29 September–2 October :https://storify.com/rochenko/a-sense-of-energy.