Antecedents, Interventions and Post-Truth Politics: The Performance and Politicization of Climate Science and Market Fundamentalism

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

Science and Technology Studies is well-placed to comment on public discussions about post-truth that tend to affirm the notion that an uncontaminated truth exists prior to its mobilization in politics. STS, of course, complicates this view by contending that what is understood as truth is conditioned by historical and social contexts and that science is unavoidably political. This panel contributes to interventions into post-truth politics by considering what can be learned from the history of neoliberalism and the politicization and performance of the climate sciences. The panel examines how truth emerges from specific mobilizations, performances and configurations of politics and knowledge. We pay particular attention to the resonances and overlaps between discourses of climate change and post-truth, and situate both within a broader framework of the history of neoliberal ideology of market fundamentalism. In this way, by exploring the history, sociology and anthropology of the political-economy and performances of climate science, the panel offers productive ways to engage with post-truth.

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chair

• Mark Vardy, Princeton University

Individual Presentations

• Historicizing Post-Truth: Possible Contributions to a Critique of Populism - Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University - History of Science

• Techniques of Resilience and Resistance in International Climate Policy - Jessica O'Reilly, Indiana University Bloomington

• Hell is Truth Seen Too Late - Philip Mirowski, Univ. of Notre Dame

• The Mediatization of Arctic Change: The Performance and Politics of Near-real-time Sea Ice Data Visualizations - Mark Vardy, Princeton University