¿Puede la experimentación social llevar a la política?

Así lo viene argumentando desde hace tiempo Michel Callon. La sociedad tecno-económica, dice Callon, da lugar al nacimiento de toda índole de comunidades de afectados. Personas que se sienten expelidas de, o directamente interpeladas por el mercado. Callon dice que son ‘residualizadas’ por el mercado, o en el lenguaje económico, ‘externalizados’. Vamos, que se les echa fuera.

Tales agrupaciones, sin embargo, pueden usar su condición de foráneas para generar un efecto político. Para ello es preciso abrir un espacio que permita su re-incorporación. Ello requiere del diseño previo de instituciones de ‘democracia dialogante’. Así es como ocurre:

“The first [objective] is to establish the list of emergent concerned groups and their problems, even if they are not yet clearly visible (inventory requirement). The second objective is to allow emergent groups – which initially are simply loose clusters of isolated, lost individuals – to express their problems and concerns (expression requirement). This introduces a third objective, which is to provide concerned groups, especially when their uncertainties are strong, with the means to specify their problems, to collect data and launch investigations, and to explore problems and solutions (exploration requirement). The fourth objective is to facilitate the expression of demands, their confrontation and their composition (composition requirement) (Figure 1). Lastly, the fifth objective ought to be to organize constant interaction between the debate on demands and interests, on the one hand, and the exploration of problems and the search for solutions, on the other (iteration requirement).

These procedures, when and where they exist, are usually designed to allow for the expression, articulation, discussion and gradual transformation of hitherto unknown expectations and demands. The recognition of emergent identities and the construction of spaces of confrontation are considered as preconditions for solutions of either an economic or a political nature. These procedures favour experiments whose results do not predict the solutions opted for. What is at play is the organization of economic activities and their relations with politics. This requires the opening up of research and experimentation to groups situated outside scientific institutions as such.”

(Callon, M. 2007. An essay on the growing contribution of economic markets to the proliferation of the social. Theory, Culture & Society 24, 139-163, p. 159-160)

Me llaman la atención dos cosas: en primer lugar la definición del momento de experimentación como un momento de confrontación, como si no fuera posible la experimentación sin una suerte de bifurcación o escisión epistémico-social previa. Hay experimentación porque se produce una división (o se da visibilidad a una división ya existente).

En segundo lugar, se da por hecho que toda experimentación genera imprevisibles, y que esta condición de imprevisibilidad es políticamente productiva.