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- Convenors:
-
Thomas Franssen
(Leiden University)
Robert Smith (The University of Edinburgh)
Michael Bernstein (AIT, Austrian Institute of Technology, GmbH)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel brings multispecies studies into conversation with STS. We focus on the productive unruliness of multispecies collaborations and seek to think about the in/exclusion of other-than human stakeholders in research and innovation, as well as its governance.
Long Abstract:
The last few years, scholars in STS and adjacent fields have started to explore the stakes of other-than humans in knowledge production. For instance, Szymanski, Smith, and Calvert (2021: 3) draw insights from multispecies studies into responsible research and innovation and invite scientists to approach living creatures as “partners in inquiry”. Partnering with stakeholders in the production of knowledge has become mainstream especially in service of sustainability transitions. Yet, the envisioned stakeholder is usually distinctly human.
Bringing multispecies studies into conversation with studies of knowledge production and governance, and positioning other-than humans as actual stakeholders, invokes new relations between humans and other-than humans, amongst other-than humans, and between humans. It urges questions about who is included or excluded in relations of knowledge production, how, and why.
In this open track we aim to create a discussion about the worth, organisation, and governance of collaboration across species barriers, taking into account the productive unruliness of multispecies collaboration in worlds of research and innovation, and its governance.
We hope to draw on insights from, especially, environmental anthropology, and animal geography, to explore multispecies collaboration in contexts of research and innovation. We seek to think about in/exclusion of other-than human stakeholders and the conceptualization and realization of agency in ecological restoration, sustainable agriculture, and other future ecologies, as well as environmental science and governance, for example the instantiation of the “do no significant harm” principle in European research and innovation.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Rebecca Walker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Margaret Waltz Douglas MacKay Jean Cadigan
Short abstract:
The one health movement aims to unite human, nonhuman animal, and environmental health goals. How genetic enhancement is perceived and used by scientists and governance stakeholders instead positions animals as collaborators in production of only human health.
Long abstract:
Posthumanists often embrace the idea of genetically enhancing humans. These views are outliers in governance debates over acceptable uses of gene editing. Yet, biomedical researchers and agricultural scientists regularly use gene editing to improve animal models of human disease, to enhance animal bodies as food sources, and to improve animal welfare under farmed conditions. This asymmetry between human and animal enhancement raises questions for the one health movement, which aims to unite human, nonhuman animal, and environmental health goals using multidisciplinary lenses. On its face, one health sees nonhuman animals as collaborators in a health production mission. Do these interspecies and ecological health goals undermine the human centric narrative about boundaries for genetic enhancement? Alternatively, should the embrace of genetic enhancement generalize from the other animals to humans?
We interviewed 81 scientists and governance stakeholders in the gene editing space and describe their views about human and animal genetic enhancement especially how animals are viewed as collaborators in production of human rather than interspecies health. These stakeholders posit strong distinctions between human and other animal enhancement using gene editing. In conversation are the moral status of human as compared with nonhuman animals, the norms of animal breeding practices, and problems of social justice as necessarily human.
In this presentation, we critically analyze these findings with an eye to repositioning animal collaborators in knowledge production as more than mere tools in human health production.
Clara Venâncio (Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto)
Short abstract:
This presentation draws on multispecies studies and more-than-human design to explore cats' and dogs' contributions to design research. We expand on possible material explorations and new product typologies by examining project CLAN interviews and family narratives.
Long abstract:
Historically, design discipline has been anthropocentric, and technological development centred on human needs and economic profit. Non-human animals and human-animal entanglements have been overlooked in design research despite humans not being separated from the environment and the other non-human agents.
Inspired by the works of Van Dooren, Kirksey, and Münster (2016) "Cultivating the Arts of Attentiveness" and Laurien, Jonssön, Lilja, Lindström, Sandelin, Ståhl (2022) "An Emerging Posthumanist Design Landscape" this presentation will look at multispecies family relations within the household and inquire about cats and dogs contributions for design research. Drawing on qualitative data from project CLAN (PTDC/SOC-SOC 28415/2017) from 60 interviews with 24 Portuguese families focusing on animal mobility, schedules, and objects within the house, we aim to gather insights about animals' preferences and needs within the home environment.
Ultimately, we will examine family narratives about animals' behaviour within the household and gather knowledge about individual preferences, object destruction, and the rise of interspecies conflict. We will look at animals' specific material interactions through these family narratives and expand on the impact of the household's material environment on interspecies family relations. We conclude by reflecting on possible material explorations that could arise from looking deeply into animals' lives, which could lead to new product developments and typologies for interspecies cohabitation.
Viktor Bedö (FHNW Academy of Art and Design) Kit Braybrooke (FHNW - University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland) Gabriela Aquije (FHNW Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst) Ruth Catlow
Short abstract:
How can we ‘give voice’ to non-humans in ways that move beyond speaking-for? Through 3 transnational case studies – two interspecies LARPs and a global anthology of posthuman feminisms – we investigate the struggle of turning-to, as opposed to turning-into, in speculative more-than-human worldings.
Long abstract:
What kinds of intimacies, tensions, and ethical challenges emerge when speculative more-than-human worldings are proposed to transcend human-oriented collaboration? What does it mean to ‘give voice’ to non-humans in ways that move beyond speaking-for, and instead invite speaking-with (Hee Jeong-Choi, Braybrooke & Forlano 2023)? Even more importantly, how do design and art practices stay with the struggle of doing so, when the majority of such projects are doomed to fail?
In this paper, we examine three cases of 'giving voice' in more-than-human worldings which invite speculative futures in collaboration with/for animal, vegetal and algorithmic communities – two more-than-human LARPs in London and in Basel, and a global anthology of posthuman feminisms. Each project enacts diverse sociotechnical assemblages to experiment with speculative modes of collaboration in/with non-human worlds – from blockchains, commons, treaties, zines, and public parks to stag beetles – which are introduced as boundary objects to make kin, and speak-with (Bellacasa 2017, Haraway 2016, Star & Griesemer 2016).
Despite best intentions, however, the anthropocentric realities of idealized worldings like these tend to invite not only new possibilities but also disappointment, discomfort, and in certain cases, betrayal. Humans have typically failed at turning into badgers (Foster 2016) and goats (Thwaites 2016), their efforts unable to overcome the bias, power dynamics and violence of human-oriented worldings. However, when turning-into is no longer the goal but rather an affective turning-to (Orozco & Parker-Starbuck 2017), possible more-than-human futures re-emerge, inviting relations that grow from – and not against – the struggle.
Yixuan Li (The University of Manchester)
Short abstract:
This paper analyses the biopolitical transformation of chickens' individuality in industrial farms, examining how breeding practices and mass production changed their agency and redefining multispecies collaboration and stakeholder roles in agro-industrial innovation.
Long abstract:
The industrialisation of poultry farming has effaced the individual animality of chickens, displacing their agency and transforming them into a mass-produced collective. This transformation is linked to the modern breeding pyramid model, where only the breeding lines have a decisive genetic influence over selection and marketability. However, as these elite breeds become commoditized for mass production, the individuality of the chicken is being lost. In the process of mass production, value is added through (e.g., farming and slaughtering), transforming them into meat products to meet diverse consumer demands.
This paper examines the biopolitical process through which chickens are integrated into industrialised food production, being socialised from individuals to a collective existence within factory farms. These spaces represent a complex network where stakeholders are involved and where biopower flows. The study probes how chickens, within the confines of factory farms, leverage their non-human nature to interact with and influence agricultural practices, research and innovation, industry infrastructures, and policy formulation.
This paper examines the biopolitical process through which chickens are integrated into industrialised food production, being socialised from individuals to a collective existence within factory farms. These spaces represent a complex network where stakeholders are involved and where biopower flows. The study compares digitalised and conventional farms and probes how chickens leverage their non-human nature to interact with and influence agricultural practices, industry infrastructures, and policy formulation. It also examines the potential for agency among chicken flocks within these modern agro-industrial complexes, and how they would interact with the local environment.