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STS and the City: Engagements and Interventions in Techno-Politics III

Sat, November 14, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Denver Sheraton, Governor's Square 17

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

Cities shape and are shaped by science and technology (S&T) innovation, politics and policy. Cities have always served as vibrant centers of social, political and economic life, and S&T innovation. From Aristotle’s Republic to Hobbes’ Leviathan to the Occupy movement, the city has been a stage for contests over competing visions of democracy and the good life. From an STS perspective, the city is a construct of boundaries and intermediaries between social and technical that affords new spaces for live to emerge. Only recently, however, have cities have emerged as critical sites for STS to explore the relationship between knowledge, technology, power and politics. Yet, STS work on the city remains fragmented. This panel organizes around work that utilizes STS frameworks to critically engage and understand historical and contemporary issues related to S&T and the city. This panel comprises three parts to address STS and the City. The session will explore how theoretical, empirical, and methodological advances can “open-up” the techno-politics of urban infrastructure. Technologies and infrastructures, both old and new, are being re-imagined and re-formed in response to a series of economic, political, and environmental problems, including climate change and concerns related to sustainability. Similarly, urban policy, planning and design are reshaping cities in light of sustainability challenges. STS, and its intersections with urban studies and planning and sustainability studies, is well-positioned to more directly and critically engage the discourses and visions of sustainability and explore how they shape S&T and social order to attain desirable futures.

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