(De-)Constructing Publics? Living Labs and the Demos Problem

• In Event: Co-creating or Testing Scalable Societies? Test Beds and Living Labs as Emerging Innovation Policy Instruments - I

Abstract

Living labs and related concepts have emerged as an increasingly prominent way of piloting socio-technological futures under quasi real-world conditions, while at the same time maintaining the experimental control of a confined space. Contemporary research tends to frame user-centered living labs as a new approach to multi-stakeholder co-creative innovation that is deemed particularly useful in complex policy settings. However, it fails to pay closer attention to whether and how underlying politics pervade stakeholder recruitment practices. This paper explores the construction of what is considered relevant publics and anticipated user groups at the interface of living labs and their political environments. More precisely, it traces the formation of the laboratory demos through dominant inclusion and exclusion mechanisms. Equally, it takes into account pre-existing assumptions about whose perspectives are relevant and on what grounds. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted at German living labs with a thematic focus on the country’s energy transition, this paper suggests that the (intentional or unintentional) manufacturing of the laboratory demos constitutes a powerful tool, not only shaping the respective technology in the making, but also socio-technological assemblages beyond the living lab. In other words, stakeholder recruitment practices themselves become technologies, which in turn are inherently political. Understanding these dynamics will provide a framework to both study and actively enable social robustness of co-creation practice. This paper is part of SCALINGS, a three-year EU-funded comparative research initiative addressing the challenges of mainstreaming co-creation across Europe in multiple technological domains.

Author

• Anja Kathrin Ruess, Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University of Munich