Intervention Inversions: A framework to understand existing practices

• In Event: Questioning Intervention with and within Science and Technology Studies: A Roundtable

Abstract

We offer a method to map and make sense of existing interventions that occur at the interface between science, technology and society. Such interventions are varyingly contained under the banner of technology assessment, responsible innovation, action research etc. While such interventions are becoming prevalent, there are few extant attempts to understand their dynamics. The method we present draws attention to five categories of architectural feature: 1) motivations; 2) sites of intervention; 3) necessary and mobilised resources; 4) methods for intervention; 5) the ways that change is envisaged by participants. We envisage this method to be used as a protocol for data elicitation through interview, self-reflection or focus group. By generating a series of systematically produced accounts of intervention, we hope to draw attention to the goals, outcomes and plethora of different strategies that are being enacted in intervention research in and with science, technology and society.

Authors

• Michael Bernstein, Arizona State University

• Robert David Jonathan Smith, University of Nottingham

• Stefan Schäfer, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies

• Shannon Spruit, Delft University of Technology

• Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, Institute for Science & Society, University of Nottingham

• sarah Hartley, University Of British Columbia

• Rider W Foley, University of Virginia

• Richard Rushforth, Northern Arizona University

• Philip Boucher, University of Manchester

• Andrew Chilvers, University College London

• Lalitha Sundaram, University of Cambridge