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Calling all microbially-curious social scientists and STS researchers! Send in your abstracts!

There are many microbe-focused panels at the upcoming EASST-4S conference in Amsterdam between the 16th and the 19th of July, 2024. We've gathered all we could find and indexed them here for clarity. Please take a look, spread the word, and submit your abstracts! Thanks and hope to see you in Amsterdam next year. Note: many of the co-convenors are members of the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes. You can find out more about us and our work here: https://www.socialmicrobes.org/

Title: Marine Transformations: Exploring the technoscience behind our changing relationship with the seas

Panel code: P009

Convenors: Sebastian Ureta (Universidad Catlica de Chile); Jackie Ashkin (Leiden University); Elis Jones (University of Exeter); Jose A. Caada (University of Helsinki)

Short abstract: Human actions both imperil and promise to save the oceans. How do technoscientific enterprises contribute to transforming human-ocean relations? This panel invites contributions which explore the more-than-human, technoscientific and ethicopolitical dimensions of knowing and relating to the ocean.

Title: Microbial Methods and Practices for Doing STS Otherwise

Panel code: P110

Convenors: Maya Hey (University of Helsinki); Salla Sariola (University of Helsinki)

Short abstract: What STS methods including tools and methodological frameworks can detect, document, and make sense of microbes? What are their affordances and limitations? And how can these social scientific methods expand the ways in which microbes are studied? This panel examines situated methods-in-action.

Title: Knowledge Politics in/through/with Microbes

Panel code: P111

Convenors: Wakana Suzuki (Osaka University); Shiho Satsuka (University of Toronto); Maya Hey (University of Helsinki)

Short abstract: This panel engages with the knowledge politics inherent to microbial phenomena, asking questions such as who has the authority to make claims about microbes and how do different microbial knowledges get negotiated? This panel aims to disentangle knowledge politics in/through/with microbes.

Title: Microbial encounters at the edge: Exploring transformative microbe-environment-human relations

Panel code: P148

Convenors: Alicia Ng (University of Helsinki); Paula Palanco Lopez (University of Oulu)

Short abstract: This panel focuses on microbial worlds in naturecultural, Anthropocenic natural environments beyond human bodies, imagination, and control in order to explore microbial processes and interactions, to follow their entanglements, transformative potential, and points of tension.

Title: Engaging with the mobile world: humans, animals, microbes, risks and care

Panel code: P184

Convenors: Alena Kamenshchikova (Maastricht University); Andrea Butcher (University of Helsinki); Catherine Will (University of Sussex)

Short abstract: The movements of humans and non-humans across the world become seen as risky or desirable depending on what, who, how and when is crossing the borders. This panel engages with these diverse mobilities and reflects upon the complex intersections of health, security and care in a mobile world.

Title: Rethinking the harm in harm reduction movements of drugs and health

Panel code: P260

Convenors: Nancy Campbell (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); Kari Lancaster (University of New South Wales)

Short abstract: We invite papers that rethink the knowledges and discourses of social movements for harm reduction in the area of drugs and health. In the face of decolonial imperatives to move away from damage-centred narratives, do we in effect do harm when we make harm central to our narratives?

Title: Planetary Health in the Anthropocene: Transdisciplinary practices towards decolonial climate futures

Panel code: P303

Convenors: Kaajal Modi (University of York); Maro Pebo (Waag Futurelab)

Short abstract: Planetary health is a transdisciplinary framework that intertwines human and ecological health. The panel aims to bring together artists, activists, and researchers employing experimental and embodied approaches to collaboratively explore imaginaries of ecology in relation to wellness and disease.

Title: Reconfiguring place, space and time to addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Panel code: P327 Convenors: Oscar Forero (CAP) Short abstract: AMR research has relied in splitting the complex AMR into smaller components overlooking the positive feedback mechanisms between ecosystems and social systems. Our call is for research that recognizes the wicked problem of AMR and that advances complexity approach to it.

Alicia Ng PhD researcher (she/they) University of Helsinki Centre of Excellence in Antimicrobial Resistance Research (FIMAR) Centre for the Social Study of Microbes (CSSM) Doctoral Programme in Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies (DENVI)

Recent publications: Ng, A. (2023) 'Transforming Toxic Materialities: Microbes in Anthropogenically Polluted Soils', Theory, Culture & Society. Ng, A (2023) 'Polluted Histories, Clean Futures? Differing Scenarios for an Electronic Waste Circular Economy in China', in Waste and Discards in the Asia Pacific Region, eds. Viktor Pl and Iris Borowy.

mastodon: https://fediscience.org/@alicia_ngingeng twitter/x: @alicia_ngingeng

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