Call for Tracks @ EASST 2014

The organization of EASST 2014 in Torun is slowly coming up, and the organizing team is calling for tracks, which then will be turned into CfPs. This is a really good opportunity to team up and push your research agenda, particularly because the 2014 topic wants to draw attention to issues of social inequality. Learning my lesson form the 4S, something with Big Data in the title might be a good idea, although:

Quote attributed to Dan Ariely of Duke University. Picture via beyondanalysis.net

That being said, here's the original call for tracks:

EASST 2014

Situating Solidarities:
social challenges for science and technology studies

Call for tracks – Deadline December 16th 2013

Torun, Poland – 17th – 19th September 2014

The EASST conference 2014 addresses the dynamics and interrelationships between science, technology and society. Contributors are invited to address the meeting’s theme of ‘Situating Solidarities' though papers on any topic relevant to the wider field are also welcome.

The theme of 'situating solidarities' addresses asymmetries of power through a focus on material, situated sociotechnical configurations. Heterogeneous networks of actors are stabilised to different degrees through complex negotiations. Rather than seeking universal abstractions the theme asks questions such as: What do the chains and networks of asymmetries look like? How do they travel? What do they carry? Do asymmetries translate to inequalities? What are the solidarities that shape the practices, artefacts and 'know-hows' in situated material contexts?

Political and ethical engagement is a central concern for a view of science as changes in collective practice, rather than as individual contemplation. How should STS observe or influence the raising and erasing of social and technical asymmetries in everyday life? What do the 'situated solidarities' of dealing with asymmetries and inequalities look like? Can STS contribute to the work of solidarising to connect asymmetric agents, places, moves and networks to weaken inequalities and change hegemonic relations?

The Conference will take place on the 17 – 19th September 2014. It will be hosted by Faculty of Humanities scholars at the Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. The city of Torun is located on the banks of the River Vistula. It has an extensive medieval town centre which is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university and the city provide a great location for the EASST 2014 conference.

Call for tracks

Continuing the approach adopted in the 2010 EASST conference in Trento, the 2014 conference involves a first stage call for tracks and convenors, with a subsequent call for papers and sessions. The conference will be organized in parallel thematic tracks that may run through part or the whole of the conference.

This initial call is for thematic tracks by convenors who will be responsible for organizing them. Convenors of track proposals accepted by the Programme Committee of the conference will manage their theme within the call for abstracts, and will be responsible for reviewing, accepting/rejecting and organising submissions into their track. Teams of convenors (up to a maximum of four people) are welcomed, particularly if they are international in composition.

Track proposals are invited for EASST 2014 which address any theme within the field of science, technology and innovation studies. Track proposals may address (but are not limited to) the particular focus on Situating Solidarities. These could include some of the following themes (more topics on webpage: http://www.easst.umk.pl/):

• Socio-technological innovation
• Solidarity: technologically embodied and embedded
• Exclusive and inclusive scientific practices
• Global situatedness and trajectories of technoscientific objects
• Technoscience and the reversing of power relations
• Ethics, culture, and technological myths
• Technoscience and modernity – necessary or contingent relation?
• Capitalism and technoscience – is it possible to think of technoscience without capitalism?
• Socio-technical progress and economic growth
• Communication, media, and solidarities
• Politics of mobile technologies
• Technoscience and development of underdevelopment
• Medical practices in socio-scientific controversies, and their international travels
• From Science to research, from research to neoliberal control over innovation process
• Socio-scientific controversies and neoliberal politics
• Technoscience in the context of local and global inequalities
• Technoscience and gender relations
• Body, gender, technoscience
• Technoscience, utopias and dystopias
• Science studies meets city studies
• Sustainability transitions
• Theoretical tensions and philosophical perturbations in STS

Tracks should address broad issues and themes within the field of science, technology and innovation studies, in order to attract a large number of scholars and can last for the entire duration of the conference or be shorter. We are open to different types of sessions: traditional ones with standard papers, practitioners’ workshops, open debates concentrated upon specific topics.

Track proposals should consist of track title, name(s) & email(s) of convenor(s) (with a short description of their position and location), and a short abstract elaborating the proposed theme and the area of interest, naming exemplary problems or giving other information crucial to a participant interested in proposing a paper (maximum of 500 words).

There will also be an open stream, whose convenors will be indicated by the Programme Committee of the conference.

Track proposals should be sent to easst2014tracks@umk.pl by December 16.

IMPORTANT DATES AND DEADLINES:

December 16: Proposal for convenors and thematic tracks deadline

January 2014: Communication to the convenors of acceptance of tracks January 31 2014: Call for submission of abstracts with the final track list included