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- Convenor:
-
Antonella Maiello
(Leide University)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Shivant Jhagroe
(Leiden University)
- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-2B12
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 16 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
We still know very little about transdisciplinary research practice's potential to contribute to social and climate justice. Focusing on energy transitions and climate governance, this panel will explore how science-society collaborative experiments are enhancing just transitions
Long Abstract:
After almost sixty years of climate change predictions, and thousands of papers published per year, we are now reaching crucial tipping points. Scientific climate knowledge has achieved a high level of accuracy in the interpretation of bio-physical phenomena, but still with limited social justice impact. A major reason underlying this problem relates to the modernist idea that scientific knowledge production is separate from politics. STS scholars have constantly challenged this belief by unravelling science-policy interfaces. The transdisciplinary debate, for instance, has developed excellent theories and methods (Philipp and Schohl, 2023; Max-Neef, 2005). However, the ideal of a value-free science still seems to be mainstream in both science and policy circles (Gundersen, 2018).
We still know very little about transdisciplinary research practice's potential to contribute to social and climate justice. In this panel, we are concerned with community-oriented experiments with the potential to be initiated frugally/informally and committed to be transformative and socially just. Focusing on energy transitions and climate governance, this panel will explore the following questions: What kind of science-society collaborative experiments are enhancing just transitions? Which role does artistic and non-scientific counter-knowledge play in shaping conditions for just climate/energy governance (e.g. through artistic performance and games)? What are key epistemic and institutional challenges, when actors engage in systemic transformation at the science-policy-art interface?
We particularly welcome empirical contributions based on collaborative experiences with non-academic actors and communities. We invite contributors with a wide range of methodologies aimed at generating performative/actionable knowledge.
The panel will be structured in three different sessions: 1) a roundtable of research working papers, with feedback from assigned discussants; 2) a performative session, with presentations in open formats of creative outputs (e.g., visual, video, art-science interface); 3) an interactive workshop where we reflect on intersecting questions and develop a transdisciplinary research agenda.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The paper explores how institutionalized knowledge about public finance audit is turned into counter-knowledge in the transdisciplinary project “Pre-enacting climate change knowledge” (PECCK) in order to become a proposition for future climate governance.
Paper long abstract:
Scholars in the anthropology of knowledge and STS have analyzed and problematized in detail the effects of the climate budget regime on climate change knowledge and climate governance. Before that background, the transdisciplinary project “Pre-enacting climate change knowledge” (PECCK, 2022-2024) projected the demand of the Austrian Climate Referendum (2020) for a Climate Court of Audit and brought it into being as a real fiction.
https://klimarechnungshof.jetzt/
Consisting of a core group of anthropologist/sts researchers, curators, a designer and filmmaker we worked with a more or less consistent group of experts from administration, climate sciences and activism. In three workshops and five staged acts we appropriated well established institutional knowledge on auditing public finances and translated it into a real-fictional campaign for the creation of a climate court of audit. These acts were publicly filmed, edited and made public via social media and a real-fictional campaign homepage.
Besides presenting the audio-visual outcome of the project I propose to analyze the conditions for realizing an anticipatory format such as a real-fiction: 1) its potential to interact with other forms of knowledge in the “ecology of climate change knowledge” (Knox 2020). 2) the possibility to bundle interests and time 3) to experience an institution from within (in our case a museum), 4) to work with the performativity of audio-visual representation (in our case: film). And finally: 5) to appropriate existing institutional knowledge and turn it into counter- or activist knowledge.
Paper short abstract:
This contribution outlines a Quadruple Helix (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009), engaged research (Campus Engage, 2019), transdisciplinary (Wernli & Darbellay, 2016), approach that was taken by our team in working with and empowering local communities to embrace green technology.
Paper long abstract:
This research working paper and audio/video clips from our societal cocreators presents the findings so far on how our transdisciplinary team comprised of engineers, social scientists, educators, and materials scientists centred the voice of the community from the beginning of our funding application and research design through to now continuing the process of cocreation with the community through a Quadruple Helix (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009) and transdisciplinary (Wernli and Darbellay, 2016) approach. The Quadruple Helix framework attributes a robust, democratic knowledge and innovation ecosystem to the relations between Academia, Industry, State, and the public (Carayannis and Campbell, 2009).
Research Aims: Operating at the intersection of science, technology, society, and environmental catastrophe, our transdisciplinary research project aims to facilitate a just transition by focusing on enhancing community voice and involvement in the introduction of energy management software through the centring of a science-society collaboration (Delina and Sovacool, 2018; Lemos et al., 2018, Pohl et al., 2021; Vienni-Baptista et al., 2022).
Methodology: A combination of 45 semi-structured interviews alongside interactive engagement workshops and observation were conducted with stakeholders from community groups, industry, academia, and various government bodies, following an iterative research process (Hoffman et al., 2019).
Findings: The working paper, while outlining the findings from the various stakeholder engagement activities that were undertaken, reflexively illustrates the benefits that emerged from the activities themselves and some key learnings. While audio and video clips from some of our key stakeholders highlights the empowerment they have experienced so far in the research journey.
Paper short abstract:
In this lecture I will outline the genesis of the cultural climate adaptation initiative, it’s working methods, resources and goals, and explain how members are building alliances with science, city administration and activists.
Paper long abstract:
Recently the value and role of culture in climate discourse has gained much deserved attention in politics and science. Last autumn the German Climate Alliance, representing 150 NGOs, issued a discussion paper, urging that, “as long as climate protection measures are not designed to be culturally sensitive, they can not be optimally effective. Valuable cultural resources remain unused.” This is even more true for the transformative challenges of climate adaptation and recovery.
So while awareness is growing for the necessity of culturally informed approaches in adaptation and recovery (Nunn 2019, Marks 2022, Sherpa 2022) there is a crucial lack of best case examples for practical implementation. Thus I created a network of cultural institutions in currently seven coastal metropolises worldwide to address adaptation challenges to sea level rise and land subsidence. Since 2024 the members are targeting urban front line communities in various socio-cultural and educational projects addressing issues like loss and grieve, displacement, tidal living and urban future scenarios. In three cities these will be accompanied and evaluated by social scientists in a research project called “Sinking Cities: Cultural Heritage as a transformational resource”
In this lecture I will outline the genesis of the network, it’s working methods, resources and goals, and explain how members are building alliances with science, city administration and activists. I will also offer glimpses into the openly accessible archive of cultural adaptation resources currently in the making.
Paper short abstract:
In a workshop Dominguez Teruel invites conference participants to work with and reflect on their own song heritage in relation to current climate adaptation challenges. Participants bring a song of their choice and collectively develop it’s potential for consolidation and solace.
Paper long abstract:
Composer Daniel Dominguez Teruel currently works with citizens of Bremen on a requiem for the future sunken city. As sea level rise is threatening harbor cities around the world, communities have to prepare emotionally for future losses and the social and cultural disruptions that come with them. Songs have traditionally served as formats for communicating and dealing with sentiments of fear, loss and trauma all over the world. In a workshop Dominguez Teruel invites conference participants to work with and reflect on their own song heritage in relation to current climate adaptation challenges. Participants bring a song of their choice and collectively develop it’s potential for consolidation and solace and create a mini-requiem for our dissonant times. As part of the workshop, cultural researcher J.P. Possmann will furthermore discuss the role of cultural heritage in climate adaptation and introduce the international network for cultural climate adaptation POLI-SEA.