Short abstract:

This presentation will engage with three kinds of left-behinds (residues) of innovation which are (made) invisible. Through creating participatory spaces, we want to render residues visible and explore how citizens conceptualize, make sense of, live with, and expect (to) care for them.

Long abstract:

Over the past decades, participation, governance and democracy have been critically debated in the context of technoscientific choices. Many of these engagements have focused on the emergence of innovations and on how to better align them with societal values (c.f., the RRI discourse). While this is a valuable starting point, it misses an important dimension.

Reading innovation processes in reverse, the ERC grant project “Innovation residues – Modes and Infrastructures of Caring for our Longue-durée Environmental Futures” (PI: Ulrike Felt; GA1010545) invites to look at left-behinds (residues) of innovations. In doing so, we analyse how contemporary societies conceptualize, make sense of, live with, and care for residues as well as how this impacts innovation choices. We focus on three residues: nuclear waste, microplastics and data waste. All three are (made) invisible in different ways, and yet have to be confronted as matters of concern, and at best – become matters of care.

How can we render the aforementioned residues visible to politically engage with them? This is one of the challenges we address. Developing participatory spaces for citizen engagement, we investigate comparatively (1) the (cultural) resources citizens draw on to discuss innovation residues (2) the visions of democracy embedded in their reflections on past choices and future forms of care; (3) the complex relations between matters of facts, concern and care; (4) the geographies of responsibility constructed around innovation residues; and (5) the envisioning of potential ways towards future social-ecological transformations.

We will present our methodological approach and preliminary insights.