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- Convenors:
-
Jason Chilvers
(University of East Anglia)
Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda (University of East Anglia)
Jan-Peter Voß (RWTH Aachen University)
Matthew Kearnes (University of New South Wales)
Phedeas Stephanides (University of East Anglia)
Helen Pallett (University of East Anglia)
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- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-2A65
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
This Combined Format Open Panel brings together constructivist STS scholarship on 'participation' and 'democracy' as objects of study, experimentation and reflexive intervention, ranging from academic paper presentations to practical demonstrations of experiments in participation and democracy.
Long Abstract:
Moving beyond an emphasis on science and technology as traditionally known, STS scholarship is increasingly turning to consider 'participation' and 'democracy' as objects of study, experimentation, and intervention in their own right. Rather than being realist pre-given categories, such work sees the objects, actors and formats of participation and democracy as co-produced through the performance of situated socio-material experiments 'in the making'. Remaking the realities of participation and democracy in this way leads to new ways of studying diverse democratic experiments in situ, as they become technologised and circulate, and how they interrelate in wider systems, ecologies, and constitutions. It is also bringing forward new forms of interventionist-STS that deliberately attempt to experiment and remake participation and democracy in practice in ways imbued with co-productionist sensibilities such as reflexivity, humility, diversity and responsibility.
This Combined Format Open Panel brings together these strands of work around the following themes:
•Experiments in participation and democracy: situated studies of through to reflexive interventions in diverse practices that engage publics in collective public issues, articulate representations of the people's (demos') collective will, and so on.
•Technologies of participation and democracy: studies of and reflexive interventions in the sciences, innovations and expertises of participation and democracy, including their representations, circulations and (ir)responsibilities.
•Ecologies of participation and democracies: studies of the diversities and interrelations between practices of participation and democracy, through to methods for mapping participation, publics, and public issues (whether digital or otherwise).
•(Re)constituting participation and democracy: theories and studies of systems, infrastructures, and constitutions of participation and democracy and reflexive engagements with their possible remaking.
The panel includes three paper presentation sessions followed by a 're-making and doing' workshop featuring practical demonstrations of experiments in participation and democracy.
Accepted paper:
Session 3Paper short abstract:
In this 're-making and doing' demonstration we showcase methods for mapping ecologies of participation developed in the Public Engagement Observatory of the UK Energy Research Centre, namely comparative case analysis, digital methods, and crowdsourcing through citizen social science.
Paper long abstract:
Moving beyond mainstream ‘residual realist’ perspectives of participation as discrete, specific and pre-given, constructivist STS scholarship sees participation, publics and public issues as co-produced through the performance of collective practices that interrelate in wider systems. Work on remaking participation in STS has developed the theoretical basis for an ‘ecologies of participation’ approach that conceptualises participation as co-produced through diverse situated collective practices, which interrelate and circulate in wider trans-local spaces of controversy and standardisation, and become stabilised in constitutional settings, such as nation states or other spaces of coherence above and below the state. In this 're-making and doing' demonstration we showcase different methods developed to map ecologies of participation with technoscience and democracy. Specifically, we provide working demonstrations of methods for mapping participation, publics and publics issues developed in the Public Engagement Observatory of the UK Energy Research Centre, namely comparative case analysis, digital methods, and crowdsourcing through citizen social science. We invite participants to engage with these methods for mapping the many different ways that publics are engaging with energy, climate change and net zero. We will prompt open consideration of the comparative differences between these methods for mapping ecologies of participation, including their different entry points, exclusions, uncertainties, and their potentials to transform technoscience, democracy and participation in practice.