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Paper short abstract

Anticipatory models have limited practical impact because they tend to ignore local contexts. Using experiments with models, we argue that taking the material dimension of transition seriously offers resources to reopen anticipatory practices and rethink transition expertise and its critique.

Paper long abstract

Anticipatory models such as those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are instruments of expert knowledge that have political implications. They participate in problematizing the socio-economic evolutions while defining the role of experts in relation with decision-makers. STS has analyzed these models and provided resources to understand the challenge they face when they attempt to produce global knowledge for the sake of actors embedded in diverse socio-cultural contexts. This raises an important epistemic and political question: how can transition futures be produced in ways that genuinely enhance actors’ capacities for action? In this paper, we argue that taking seriously the material dimension of transition offers resources for reopening anticipatory practices and rethinking transition expertise and its critique.

We analyze an ongoing experiment in which we are involved alongside modelers and local actors. First, we show that this experimentation requires rethinking the very production of models so as to blur, as far as possible, the boundary between modelers and potential users. Second, we show that this approach transforms the posture of expertise: rather than establishing trajectories, the task becomes one of collectively investigating problems. Finally, it calls for rethinking the role of the STS researcher, who performs critique together with actors and modelers in ways that help articulate problems and reflect on the distribution of winners and losers in transitions.