+++ apologies for cross-posting +++
Dear colleagues
Please see our call for papers for the STS Graz Conference and consider
applying - the conference will take place May 5-7th in Graz, Austria.
Ageing Technofutures-in-the-Making
Futures have always been debated, planned and materialised. The turn towards
the future in times of (social) crisis has a long history and traditionally
focussed on developing scenario planning, forecasting and on producing
predictions of the future. Anticipation Studies challenges this sense of
certainty and stability in relation to futures by starting from the premise of
the need to develop "an active and critically reflective interaction with
futures that are unknowable" (Amsler & Facer 2017). It starts from a belief
that, not only can we not know the future, but that futures are multiple,
complex and uncertain (Miller 2018) and therefore could be "otherwise". So,
whilst the future does not really exist in the present, anticipation certainly
does.
In this session, we are interested in exploring how anticipations in relation
to ageing technofutures play out in the present and impact on the ways in
which different social actors engage in futures-making. As we age we are
continually asked to anticipate and plan for our well (ill)-being, financial
and social situation (Adams et al. 2009; Shimoni 2018). "Gerontechnologies"
(Gallistl et al. 2023) are often imagined as solutions to the economic and
social "problems" of population ageing (Cozza et al. 2019; Joyce 2021). They
are promised to promote healthy lifestyles, "independent living" and "ageing
in place", to support caregivers and ensure safety, whilst preventing social
isolation, all key policy goals internationally. However, who is and can
become an active agent in shaping the development of these technologies has
long been reserved to an elite of experts.
Regimes of anticipation related to ageing technofutures determine and
"prestructure which developments are considered relevant and urgent, possible
or inevitable" (Konrad & Bhle 2019) through expressing a particular way of
"thinking and living toward the future" in the present (Adams et al. 2009).
They emerge around particular collectively shared ways of thinking, reasoning
and imagining futures that are made to seem inevitable. They are articulated
and materialised through anticipatory practices that affect the design of
policies (e.g. legislation such as the EU AI Act or WHO-guidelines of age
friendly cities), infrastructures, the allocation of resources, or transform
practices of professional societies as well as individuals. They lead to what
Annette Markham (2021) has described as "discursive closure". That is, that
certain practices or technological designs are made to seem like processes
that just exist or are inevitable. Neutralised in this way, ageing
technofutures are imagined as "value-free routines or routine ways of
thinking" (p.392). This risks removing a sense of agency, recognition of where
sociotechnical anticipations originated and what values and norms they
represent. It reinforces both a sense of the inevitability of certain uses of
technologies and a sense of powerlessness.
We invite contributions that engage with questions around:
- Regimes of anticipation at the intersection of ageing & technologies
- What claims are being articulated?
- Who has a stake in stabilising these anticipations?
- Who enacts and responds to these anticipations (how/why) in the
present?
- (Alternative) methods and approaches to futures-making
- (Re)-configurations of sociotechnical imaginaries of ageing
https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/
Juliane Jarke, PhD (she/her)
Professorin fr Digitale Gesellschaft | Professor of Digital Societies
BANDAS Center | BANDAS Center
Institut fr Soziologie | Department of Sociology
Universitt Graz | University of Graz
ReSoWi Section G, Floor IV
Universittsstrae 15, 8010 Graz, Austria
Homepage |
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