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- Convenor:
-
Jaco de Swart
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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- Format:
- Closed Panel
- Location:
- HG-07A33
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 16 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
This is a panel about cleanliness. It investigates how modern scientific practices contribute to, or interfere with, different versions of cleaning and cleanliness—hygienic, environmental, aesthetic, or otherwise—through the impact of their waste, workings, or knowledge products.
Long Abstract:
Modern science is built on dreams of purity. But if conceptual order and messiness have received a lot of interest in social studies of science, material cleaning and dirtying remained in the background. In this panel, we turn the tables and wonder about the material cleans and dirts in—and of—science. We investigate how modern scientific practices contribute to, or interfere with, different versions of cleanliness—hygienic, environmental, aesthetic, or otherwise. What values of clean do scientists create or adhere to? What wastes and dirt do they introduce and leave behind? And how does their work create tensions between different registers of clean and dirt?
The panelists trace how knowledge ideals in the physical and life sciences build on ideas of cleanliness, depend on material cleaning work, or introduce lasting new senses of dirt. In the laboratories of fundamental physics, we follow the dependencies of quantum technologies on optical measures of cleanliness and trace the ‘goods’ of cleaning a detector that searches for hypothetical dark matter particles. On land and in the sea, we track the polluting tensions of chemical interventions with the introduction of new insecticides and illustrate struggles for cleanliness as seaweeds inundate white sand beaches.
We ask the audience to join us and share their own un/clean field work encounters.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
In the Caribbean, managing Sargassum algae hinges on its perception as marine biodiversity or a disruptive nuisance. We explore the sociomaterial assemblages, ontological struggles and transformations undergone by the algae, shedding light on contested narratives surrounding its value and utility.
Paper long abstract:
When people think of algae, images of pond scum, dirt, or slime usually come to mind. However, without algae, life on Earth would cease to exist. Algae play a crucial role in maintaining the freshness and cleanliness of bodies of water, as they absorb pollutants in the ocean and store carbon dioxide. Despite often being perceived as a “dirty” aquatic species, algae are yet key companions in the Anthropocene era. In the Caribbean, where Sargassum has begun washing up on shore in massive quantities in 2011, algae is often placed on the dirty–clean continuum, generating ontological struggles, as the algae alternates between being perceived as a natural component of marine biodiversity and a troublesome nuisance causing economic and environmental disruptions. The positioning of Sargassum along this spectrum significantly shapes practices of its management. We discuss the multifaceted material politics surrounding the management of Sargassum along the Caribbean coast of Mexico. Drawing on ethnographic research, we explore how various actors navigate the complexities of handling and disposing of Sargassum, shedding light on the intricate sociomaterial assemblages involved in its management. Furthermore, we scrutinize the material transformations undergone by Sargassum, from collection and processing to potential repurposing as fertilizer or biomass, elucidating the contested narratives surrounding its value and utility.
Paper short abstract:
Laboratory experiments depend on being clean. But what is clean? In this talk, I open up the value of 'clean' and practices of cleaning in an experiment aimed to detect signs of a hypothetical dark matter particle.
Paper long abstract:
Laboratory sciences crucially depend on experiments being clean. But what is clean? This talk contributes to the study of valuing in the sciences by opening up the good of ‘clean’ in a physics experiment. My case is the XENONnT experiment in the Gran Sasso Mountains of Italy which is meant to detect dark matter in the form of the hypothetical WIMP – the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle. This experiment is clean when it is ‘free from signals that mimic dark matter’. In practice, such cleanliness has been difficult to achieve – soaps may be radioactive, steel may spread electronegativity, and humans are altogether dangerously filthy. And because, at least thus far, dark matter remains elusive, it is impossible to tell whether the meticulously cleaned detector is adequately clean. Additional cleaning efforts will make the detector sensitive to neutrino particles: a background that cannot be cleaned away. As the experimenters dread the possibility that this means their experiment will end in limbo, other physicists are now trying to detect other hypothetical dark matter particles with other kinds of experiments, requiring other kinds of cleanliness. Meanwhile, the attempts to achieve detector specific cleanliness requires resources and generates discards that all too easily go unnoticed. In response to this, I contend that such externalities, that is the ‘external bads’ generated by experimental sciences, urgently deserve attention.