Dear all,
We invite contributions to our open panel Policy instruments and the making of sociotechnical futures: production, circulation and effects convened by Aykut Stefan (Universität Hamburg), Bilel Benbouzid (Université Gustave Eiffel), Marlyne Sahakian and myself (Université de Genève) at the 2022 EASST Conference in Madrid (July 6–9). Abstracts are expected by February 1, 2022, using the submission platform: https://easst2022.org/callforsubmissions.asp.
In keeping with fruitful developments at the crossroads of political sociology and science and technology studies (Voss & Freeman 2016, Halpern et al., 2014), our panel seeks to shed light onto instruments and future-making practices in different policy sectors (climate change, energy, agriculture, digital technologies, urban development, and industries) and thereby on how instruments and future-production devices circulate from one sector to another.
Papers are invited to consider instruments and issues at different scales - global, national and local. We welcome in particular comparisons across sectors and levels of intervention. They can focus on their production, circulation or effects in regard to future-making practices, techniques, or knowledge. Papers can deal with one specific policy instrument or compare different instruments, in one or in multiple sectors. We welcome, for example, papers examining the use of impact assessments or scenarios in one sector (i.e. in environmental or digital governance) and / or looking at how they migrate across sectors.
Authors are invited to explore, among other issues:
- What kinds of knowledge, actors, and scales are privileged by / for different policy instruments in the production of futures?
- How do different instruments frame temporal and geographical scales in the production of futures?
- What tensions and conflicts can be observed?
- How do different policy instruments foster the circulation of futures across social arenas?
- What effects do they produce in public debate?
- How is the production of future-knowledge imbricated in conflictual processes of collective construction of futures?
We hope to cover as many instruments and sectors as possible to foster potential comparisons during the debate and in future work. On this basis, this panel aims at initiating a research programme gathering scholars from STS and other thematic domains of expertise, raging from energy to AI, around policy instruments and future making practices.
Paper submissions should be in the form of abstracts of up to 300 words in English.
They should include the paper’s main arguments in regard with the panel proposal, its empirical basis, as well as its contribution to STS.
When submitting your paper on the submission platform (https://easst2022.org/openpanel.asp), please select panel 030.
Papers will be reviewed by the convenors.
The submitting author will be considered as the presenting author.
For any inquiries concerning the panel topic to write to: nicolas.bayalaffite@unige.ch
Please do not hesitate to circulate through your relevant networks.
Best wishes,
Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Marlyne Sahakian, Stefan Aykut and Bilel Benbouzid
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Nicolas Baya-Laffite
Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Department of Sociology, School of Social Science
University of Geneva
UniMail - bureau 4324
40, bd du Pont-d’Arve
CH - 1211 Geneva 4
+41 (0) 2237 98887
