Dear all,
Please see the call for abstracts for a special session at the Nordic STS conference below. We look forward to submissions dealing with critical reflections on the concept of efficiency as an ideological and epistemic pursuit in science, technology and policy-making.
The Call for abstracts for the 7th Nordic STS Conference 11-13 June 2025 in Stockholm, deadline 1 march
Call for Abstracts
More with less?: Questioning Efficiency and Productivity in Science, Technology and Policy-Making
The pursuit of efficiency and productivity has long shaped scientific and technological endeavors, often framed as universal virtues essential for progress and innovation. From the automation of manual tasks to the streamlining of industrial processes, science and technology have continuously redefined what it means to do more with less. In energy and environmental policy, efficiency has also become a key trope as illustrated by the push for resource efficiency and energy efficiency in industry, households and laboratories.
Yet, the drive for efficiency and productivity also invites critical inquiry: whose values do these processes serve, and what unintended consequences emerge in their pursuit? How do researchers and policy-makers relate to potential rebound effects, where increased efficiency in resource use leads to greater overall consumption? How are displacements of in/efficiencies across systems and scales accounted for in science, technology and policy?
Critical scholars of sustainability have also begun to complicate the narrative of efficiency as inherently beneficial by calling for sufficiency. Calls for ‘slowing down’ has emerged as a reaction to an acceleration-derived drive for efficiency. What does the focus on efficiency do to our understanding of work, home, nature, and socio-ecological relationships? How might a slower, more deliberate approach to work and technology shift our perspectives on productivity? How are alternative conceptualizations such as sufficiency and slowness to be understood in relation to efficiency?
This session invites scholars to explore (i) how science, technology and policy-making implicitly endorse efficiency and productivity, (ii) how these processual qualities are directly targeted through research and innovation, or (iii) how alternative conceptualizations (sufficiency, slowness etc) relate to, or presuppose, efficiency and productivity.
Contributions may consider topics such as:
* How categorizations and sorting processes precondition efficiency.
* The role of metrics and standards in shaping perceptions of efficiency and productivity.
* How different actors relate to efficiency and productivity.
* The situatedness of efficiency in workplaces, in households and in science and technology.
* Case studies of technological innovation that prioritize productivity, and their societal or ecological impacts.
* Tensions between efficiency and other values, such as sufficiency, equity, or care.
* Historical and cultural differences in how efficiency and productivity are valued in research and technological practices.
* Alternative frameworks that challenge dominant paradigms of efficiency and productivity, focusing on degrowth, post-growth, or slow science.
We encourage contributions from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, including but not limited to Science and Technology Studies (STS), sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy of science, and organizational studies. This session seeks to critically interrogate the implications of prioritizing efficiency and productivity, fostering discussions about their limits and possibilities in shaping equitable and sustainable futures.
Panel Organizers:
Alexander Paulsson, Lund university alexander.paulsson@fek.lu.se
Oscar Krüger, Lund university oscar.kruger@hek.lu.se
Gisle Solbu, Norwegian University of Science and Technology gisle.solbu@ntnu.no
References
Alexander, Jennifer K. (2008). The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Berman, Elizabeth Popp. (2022). Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy. Princeton University Press.
Dunlop, Tessa. (2022). Energy Efficiency: The Evolution of a Motherhood Concept. Social Studies of Science 52(5): 710–732. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221096171.
Gregg, Melissa (2018). Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy. Duke University Press
Guthman, Julie. (2022). “The CAFO in the Bioreactor: Reflections on Efficiency Logics in Bio- industrialization Present and Future.” Environmental Humanities 14(1): 71–88. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-9481440
Korsnes, M., & Solbu, G. (2024). Can sufficiency become the new normal? Exploring consumption patterns of low-income groups in Norway. Consumption and Society, 3(3), 233-253. https://doi.org/10.1332/27528499Y2024D000000009
Krüger, Oscar and Alexander Paulsson (2025, forthcoming). Bio-Efficiency: On the valorisation of innovation in the bioeconomy. Valuation Studies.
Solbu, G., Ryghaug, M., Skjølsvold, T. M., Heidenreich, S., & Næss, R. (2024). Deep experiments for deep transitions–low-income households as sites of participation and socio- technical change in new energy systems. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 52, 100865.
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