Democracy, science and the "open society"

This collection explores the social legacy of European Enlightenment ideas of science and rationality. In their deployment science and rationality were intended to give rise to open and democratic societies. The volume addresses the history of these notions while centring on ethnographic studies of openness and equitability in contemporary European social milieux, as well as in the European postcolony and on Europe's increasingly global 'fringes'. The book takes its lead, in particular, from Karl Popper's ideas, and his key liberal text, The Open Society and its Enemies.