Nanoscale science and technology and social cohesion

Nanoscale sciences and technologies are developing at a rapid pace enabling other science and technology fields and generating new products and processes. Nanoscale and other science and technology products and processes can impact positively or negatively various aspects of social cohesion such as belonging, shared values, identity, feelings of commitment, equal opportunities, participation in society and social life and the respect and tolerance for diversity directly or through impacting other parameters such as food, health and economic security. One area hardly covered yet is the impact of ableism and its transhumanised form on different areas of social cohesion and the role of nanoscale and other sciences and technologies. The coverage of social cohesion within nanoscale science and technology discourses and vice versa and the linkage to ableism is one aspects of this paper. The paper suggests a way forward for the nanoscale, the ableism and the social cohesion discourses.

Keywords: nanotechnology, nanoscale, science and technology, social cohesion, human security, social well-being, ableism, human enhancement, ability studies, disability, transhumanisation, nanoscience