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- Convenors:
-
Anna Verena Eireiner
(University of Cambridge)
Marabel Riesmeier (University of Cambridge)
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- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
Short Abstract
Focusing on the entanglements of matter, knowledge, and care, this panel asks how molecular substances become legible as both risk and resource, and how these shifting boundaries shape resilient futures.
Description
Biological and chemical substances are never just neutral entities. They leak, act, disturb, and sustain. This panel explores how such substances are mobilised in contemporary technoscience as both danger and hope, as agents that blur the line between toxicity and vitality. From endocrine disruptors in water systems to hormone therapies in clinical practice, from trace chemical exposures to wearable biomedical sensors, these molecular actors shape how futures of health and environment are (re-)imagined and enacted.
We bring together researchers working in STS, history and philosophy of science, and related fields to think through how toxicities and vitalities are co-produced. Contributions might examine the epistemic and ethical stakes of assessing chemical safety, the politics of measuring hormones as indicators of wellness or risk, or how new sensing technologies reconfigure the boundaries between bodies, environments, and instruments. How do scientists, instruments, and publics navigate substances that both poison and repair? What epistemic and infrastructural practices allow these materials to become legible and governable?
The panel contributes to STS debates on materiality, care, and evidence by examining how molecular knowledges configure responsibility and resilience across bodies and ecologies. Aligning with the conference theme More than now: exploring resilient futures, we ask how scientific and social actors (re-)imagine futures in which molecular life must be managed, endured, or reconfigured, highlighting the material and political work involved in sustaining life at a molecular scale.
As a combined-format open panel, we welcome conceptual, ethnographic, and experimental contributions exploring the entanglements of molecules, life, and technoscientific practice. Following the panel, a participatory workshop will invite participants to collectively materialise “molecular futures” using modeling clay as a speculative medium. This hands-on session is an invitation to foster tactile reflection on the material and affective dimensions of molecular relations.
Practical requirements: tables, washable surface covering, and modeling clay (e.g. play-doh) for circa 25 participants.