Short Abstract

The roundtable discussion addresses current debates around methodic reflexivity and inclusivity in STS. It provides a space for reflection on how 'participation' is discussed & enacted in various participatory method(ic)s to facilitate knowledge exchange on participatory STS & its growing plurality.

Description

During the 90-minute session, the contributors give up to five short talks on the main arguments and/or calls to action of a discussion paper currently in progress concerning the current state and future of participatory STS in Germany. These talks build upon a one-day workshop held during the stsing-conference in March 2026. During this workshop, the group jointly analysed research data from various projects across Germany, focusing on the performativity of methods in practice through 'methodography', a genre of writing that encourages us to 'understand our method of ethnography (and other forms of social inquiry) ethnographically' (Greiffenhagen et al., 2011; Lippert & Mewes, 2021).

With this, ‘participatory methodography’ sets the ground for a more nuanced analysis and discussion on how, when, in what form does participation occur, how is it facilitated and/or prevented, and for whom?

First, the group interactively maps the various approaches to participatory STS research commonly used across Europe and beyond, reflecting on uncommon and marginalised approaches. The following discussion is organised in small groups over two rounds, exploring how, when and with what real-life effects participants' research methods enact and textually represent 'participation' as a shared analytical framework.

Questions include:

What is 'participatory' about our participatory research?

How can 'participation' be traced throughout the research project?

How do participatory methods navigate tensions between inclusion and expertise?

Building on the World Café approach, the discussion concludes with a collective discussion on the current state and future of participatory STS. All participants are invited to compile these reflections for a second joint discussion paper, to facilitate more targeted knowledge exchange, networking, and collaboration, taking into account the efforts of other networks and associations working on such matters in Europe and beyond (e.g. VW-Foundation, 2025; Downey & Zuiderent-Jerak, 2021; Mewes et al., 2025).