Flood apprentices: an exercise in making things public

Abstract Taking our lead from Stengers’ experimental constructivism, this paper reports on the invention of a research apparatus – the ‘competency group’ (CG) – that aims to put things capable of forcing thought and attachment to work in the exercise of new knowledge polities. It draws on the work of one such group based in Pickering, a town in the catchment of Ryedale with long experience of flooding. This group involved social and natural scientists working collaboratively with people affected by flooding over a twelve-month period, to interrogate the science that informs local flood management and intervene in the public controversy to which it had given rise. The paper focuses on the ways in which various artefacts that mediated our collective flood apprenticeship in Ryedale were recharged as publicity devices through which the working practices and knowledge claims of what became the Ryedale Flood Research Group gathered political force in the wake of the group's work.