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- Convenors:
-
Tadeusz Józef Rudek
(Jagiellonian University)
Aleksandra Wagner (Jagiellonian University)
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- Chairs:
-
Tadeusz Józef Rudek
(Jagiellonian University)
Aleksandra Wagner (Jagiellonian University)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel looks at how urgency and delay are constructed in sociotechnical projects. The question of how perceptions of time relate to knowledge, imaginaries and decisions is crucial. We welcome contributions from STS and sociology through presentations on their research and positionality on time.
Long Abstract:
"None of a hundred philosophers could disentangle this knot. No wonder each now shrinks in some secluded spot" W. Szymborska, Lesson.
Social change, at the heart of sociotechnical transformation, is inescapably linked to time. The way people understand and experience these temporalities is intertwined with notions of progress, development, etc. It is linked to movement, knowledge and choice. It implies notions of past and future horizons. It traps us - humans - in the co-produced reality of our observations, which we can call an event horizon, borrowing this metaphor from physics. Making choices and 'making transformations' underlines the importance of knowledge, its co-production and its role in opening the future by maintaining multiple possibilities and closing the future by making a choice. Sociology and STS look differently at the notion of time and temporality. Intuitively, technological developments challenge the relationship between time and our co-produced choices. Do they? Rather than discussing the acceleration of sociotechnical change, we propose to focus on urgency and delay - their role in the change process and how they are co-produced.
A particular interest of this panel is how urgency and delay are constructed in the variety of sociotechnical projects in STEM and SSH. In this sense, the question of how different perceptions of time and ways of dealing with time in relation to knowledge production, imaginaries, and decision-making shape the positionality and reflexivity remains valid in relation to the positionality of our own research: How do sociology and STS think about time? How do they position their research in terms of urgency and delay? How do these two fields talk about the notion of time? While globally visible postulates for making and doing transformations are visible, the questions of temporalities ( seen in the dichotomy of urgency and delay) are often overlooked.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Selen Eren (University of Oulu) Anne Beaulieu (University of Groningen)
Short abstract:
We explore what constitutes relevant environmental knowledge by paying attention to the temporal dimensions of knowledge. Our analysis identifies how different knowledge actors value different kinds of scientific knowledge, why their valuation differs, and what can be done to reconcile differences.
Long abstract:
In this article, we unearth an epistemic tension between scientists and other knowledge actors around the definition of relevant knowledge, by paying attention to the temporal dimensions of knowledge. We investigate this tension through a case study where different knowledge actors are concerned with the rapid decline of the Dutch national bird, the Black-tailed Godwit. We analyze the temporal dimension of relevant knowledge as a powerful way to identify not only how different knowledge actors value different kinds of knowledge (systems, target, and transformation knowledge) (Grunwald, 2004; Weiland et al., 2017), but also why their knowledge valuations differ. Based on this analysis, we explain first how the timescapes (encompassing relations to various temporal dimensions such as timeline, temporality, timeframe, urgency, and pace) in which knowledge actors operate shape their understanding of relevant knowledge. We do this by identifying two different timescapes at work: epistemic trajectorism and simultaneity. Second, we discuss how different approaches to various temporal dimensions, and thus different understandings of relevant scientific knowledge, can coexist and/or get aligned. We further develop the call for transformative science (Schneidewind et al., 2016), which goes beyond a single and dominant type of scientific knowledge (systems knowledge) and diversifies the outcomes (target and transformation knowledge). We do so by arguing that transformative science can be better established through the reconfiguration of knowledge infrastructures for a temporally situated science that allows for the co-existence and/or alignment of different knowledge actors’ timescapes.
Helene Dollfus (Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg) Valentine Gourinat (University of Strasbourg)
Short abstract:
The aim of this presentation is to explore the way in which different temporalities come into conflict with each other in the context of a study into the quality of life of visually impaired children and teenagers suffering from a rare eye disease.
Long abstract:
Socioanthropological studies in the field of health, because they attempt to capture as closely as possible the experiences of people affected by illness and disability, are a relevant entry point for understanding the contrasting realities and, more specifically, temporalities that can drive the various stakeholders involved in research: researchers, carers, patients and their relatives. The SeeMyLife study (2022-2025) is a mixed-method study which aims to measure the quality of life of children and teenagers suffering from severe visual impairment as a result of a rare eye disease. The study opens on a socio-anthropology of the complexity of social time (Sue, 1993), the contradiction and divergence that can exist in the uses of different ‘times’: that of research, that devoted to care, that of other aspects of daily life and that of personal projections. The time taken for research, for instance, can be difficult to understand in situations involving genetic diseases in young children: it seems frighteningly long compared with the speed of the child's growth (and of the disease) especially as they have difficulty projecting themselves into the future and have a very specific relationship with time, compared with the time experienced by able-bodied people (we draw here on the notion of 'Crip Time' : Samuels, 2017). We will also take a critical look at the constraints imposed in mixed-method research, which sometimes hinders the research process and further reduces the time that the researcher can devote to taking account of the experiences of the people involved in the study.
Aleksandra Lis (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Short abstract:
We present the concept of “transition imaginary” defined as an effect of the relational work of the state to strategically select and reconfigure landscape pressures and national sociotechnical imaginaries for the sake of carrying out particular transition projects.
Long abstract:
Two elements of sustainable transitions have been considered undertheorized in multi-level-perspective: landscape and state. We present the concept of “transition imaginary” defined as an effect of the relational work of the state to strategically select and reconfigure landscape pressures and national sociotechnical imaginaries for the sake of carrying out particular transition projects. This way, we aim to theorize the relation between the landscape and the state. With the case study of the Polish project of an EV IZERA, we illustrate a model which helps understand how landscape pressures are re-interpreted in relation to national sociotechnical imaginaries with the active role of state actors in this process. State actors with political or economic stakes in the project, use various forms of representation to publicly express expectations about its benefits and its national meaning to consolidate the social base for it and propose concrete forms of intervention. At the same time, other actors from state and economic institutions become interested in verifying and challenging both the expectations and particular intervention instruments. By applying the strategic-relational approach to state power developed by Bob Jessop, we unpack sustainable transitions as state projects of political power and a geographically specific modality of state capitalism.
Marcin Mielewczyk (Jagiellonian University Krakow) Agata Konczal (Wageningen University) Krzysztof Niedziałkowski
Short abstract:
Assessment of urgency of forest adaptation to climate change differs between groups - for climate activists every day of delay in changing the status quo means a loss, while their actions meet resistance and delay from existing state structures that operate according to institutional knowledge.
Long abstract:
Forests are a particularly important sector in the context of climate change. They are assessed as a resource that can accumulate excess CO2 contributing to climate change mitigation, but on the other hand, they are extremely sensitive to changes in climate conditions and need adaptation to them. The urgency of this adaptation process is however perceived differently depending on social groups. For climate activists, every day of delay in changing the status quo (in terms of emissions mitigation and risk adaptation) means a loss, while their actions meet resistance from existing state structures that operate according to institutional knowledge, slowing down proposals for rapid change. In Poland, the relatively slow adoption of climate change mitigation measures is due to the strong position of the State Forestry Holding, which manages 80% of the forests, and does not consider climate change as an urgent issue. The purpose of this paper is to compare the position of climate activists regarding the urgency of adaptation measures in forests with the institutional knowledge and procedures in which forestry in Poland operates. Methods of collecting material included structured in-depth interviews (n=30) conducted with representatives of various forestry institutions and a review of scientific literature (n=67) on proposals for forest adaptation to climate change. We argue that both climate activists and foresters perceive climate change as an important issue, but at the same time, they differ in their understanding of time perspectives - what is possible to achieve urgently, and what must wait for generational change.