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A18


Uncertain futures: green alternatives and STS interventions 
Convenor:
Les Levidow (Open University)
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Stream:
Encounters between people, things and environments
:
Bowland Lecture Theatre (Bowland Main)
Start time:
28 July, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
Session slots:
2

Short Abstract:

Through this panel we aim to advance STS theoretical and methodological interventions into both reflecting on and making of 'green futures'.

Long Abstract:

We want to reflect on problems of environmental degradation and its threat to livelihoods which has become a focal point for diverse remedies promoting visions of a better, 'green' society. Such remedies came predominantly in form of various techno- and market-fixes but also as alternatives proposed by social movements demanding environmental justice and 'system change', as well as local communities and indigenous peoples operating according to non-capitalist notions of nature and alternative cosmologies. Amidst policy frameworks promoting new infrastructure for economic growth, alternatives propose 'green infrastructure' in various forms. There are, however, also other responses, coming from indigenous peoples, local communities, such as, for example, de-growth communities.

Through this panel we aim to advance STS theoretical and methodological interventions into both reflecting on and making of 'green futures'. The main questions to engage with are:

(1) What theoretical and methodological approaches in STS have proven to be most fruitful for studying how various visions of 'green futures' are made and how they stabilize into social orders? We are interested in conceptualizing technologies for making 'futures' and 'the predictions of future', new agencies, as well as new socio-technical orders, their scales and temporalities.

(2) How can we advance the existing STS approaches to studying 'uncertain futures' and 'green futures'?

(3) How do various remedies for the environmental crisis engage with the neoliberal order of contemporary capitalism, either by strengthening or subverting it? In other words, we are also interested in the politics of 'uncertain futures' and 'green futures'.

Accepted papers:

Session 1