The 1998 NECSTS-workshop on: Politics of Technology
The workshop is financially supported by: the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), the Dutch Research School on Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC), the Faculty of Arts and Culture, Maastricht University (UM), and Universiteitsfonds / SWOL.
The Department of Technology and Society Studies, and the Faculty of Arts and Culture (Maastricht University), are hosting the 1998 annual workshop of the Network of European Centers in Science and Technology Studies (NECSTS). The workshop will be held on May 13 - 16, 1998 in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
The general theme of the workshop will be: Politics of Technology. Under this general heading the workshop will address issues of technology and power, normativity and morality; issues that are currently debated in the field of technology studies. Following an introductory session on theory and concepts the workshop will address these issues mainly, through thematic sessions on topics where `technology and politics meet'. In these sessions the organizing committee brings to-gether researchers from the field of technology studies working on these topics as interesting research sites, with researchers from other (sub)disciplines covering the same area.
There will be a session on the `Politics of Bodies and Machines', moving from `disembodied human identities in cyberspace and new media' through 'digital human bodies in machines' to'technology and disabled bodies'.
There will be a second session on the `Politics of Uses of Space in Cities and Landscapes', covering issues from the generation of a global citizenship through mass media, through urban design and landscape architecture (and design in urban and natural environments), to the politics of city noise abate-ment.
A concluding session will explicitly readdress issues of politics of technology (democracy, normativi-ty, control), and questions about the politics of technology studies (political reflexivity): how does our own (researcher's) political engage-ment and agenda relate to the way in which we conceptualize issues of politics and technology.
All contributors to the program will be invited to use audiovisual materials in their presentations. There will also be a film program with short films and documentaries on topics related to the program.
Poster sessions will be organized for participants to the workshop to present and discuss their own research.
Wednesday, May 13
16.00 Registration
17.00 Welcome: Ger Wackers, University of Maastricht
17.15 Opening Session: Politics of Technology:
Setting an Agenda; statements and discussion on conceptual issues
19.00 Reception / Dinner in town
Thursday, May 14
Politics of Bodies, Machines and Identities
09.00 Politics of the Internet: Competing Claims of Cyberpower and Cyberdemocracy
10.00 Embodied Virtuality: New Media and Distributed Cognition
11.00 Coffee & Tea / Posters
11.30 Virtual Cadavers: The Visible Human Project
12.30 Lunch / Posters
13.30 Bodies as a Trial: The Collective Process of Patient Reconfiguration
14.30 Where are the Norms? On Normativity and Blood Sugar Measurement
15.30 Coffee & Tea / Posters
16.00 'Making Voices': Disability, Technology and Articulation
17.00 End of session
18.00 Dinner in town
20.30 Films
Friday, May 15
Politics of Uses of Space in Cities and Landscapes
9.00 Global Citizenship, the Environment and Mass Media
10.00 Ecotechnology and the Shaping of New Nature in the Netherlands
11.00 Coffee & Tea / Posters
11.30 Green Buildings and Power: Competing Conceptions of Design and Development
12.30 Lunch / Posters
13.30 Obduracy and the Politics of Urban Sociotechnical Change
14.30 "High-Tech Concrete for Potsdammer Platz" or: How Science comes into the City
15.30 Coffee & Tea / Posters
16.00 The Power of Sound. New Technologies and City Noise in Europe, 1910 - 1940
17.00 End of Session
19.00 Conference Dinner
Saturday, May 16
Bodies and Cities
10.00 TBA
12.00 Lunch / Posters
Politics of Technology Revisited
13.00 Changing Discourses of Physical Planning: Think Tanks and Policy Innovation
14.30 Coffee & Tea / Posters
15.00 Cross-sectional theoretical reflections on Democracy and Control, Normativity and Identity, and Political Reflexivity (with contributions from Hayles, Mol and Bijker, and other observers)
16.00 End of workshop
17.00 For those who stay over until Sunday: Guided tour through the subterranean limestone quarries of the St Pietersberg
Further information
More information about the workshop can be obtained from:
Ger Wackers, University of Maastricht, Faculty of Arts and Culture, Department of Technology and Society Studies, PO Box 616, NL-6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
Tel.: + 31 43 3883372 / 3476; Fax: + 31 43 3259311
E-mail: g.wackers@tss.unimaas.nl