Investigating the Moral Nuances of Nature: A Multisensory Exploration Through the Anthropogenic Urban Woodland

by Bente Castro-Campos

In June 2022, I embarked on an expedition with a team of researchers, creatives, and members of the public to investigate a woodland located near Frankfurt, Germany. We made five stops to observe the Anthropocene’s environmental effects, collecting artifacts to build an artwork that stressed the significance of viewing nature as a unified system. Our conversations revealed that local authorities cared more about financial losses from tree decay than the ecological consequences, which gave me a powerful and enlightening experience.

From laboratory life to the living and tinkering laboratories of care: a new perspective in STS research?

Inspired by the keynote plenary intervention of Madeleine Akrich on “Inquiries into experience and the multiple politics of knowledge” at the 4S/EASST Conference in Barcelona 2016, this article discusses the profile of an emerging perspective in STS research: a tinkering living laboratory of care. Moreover, it provides a closer examination of care theories and practices as they were addressed in three sessions from the same conference. A tinkering living laboratory of care is a source of knowledge “by other means”, it overpasses an individual way of thinking, and argues for collective-orientated theories and methodologies.