Future of Politics and Politics of the Future - I

Abstract

Politics are an essential dimension of nearly every case study and conceptual innovation in STS, although, with rare exception, the future of politics and the politics of the future are rarely the topic of rigorous, sustained discussion. Given the current in/stabilities in our contemporary political context -- the rise of nationalisms and the decline of international law, the reinvention of borders and security as technical problems, or the reconfiguration of geopolitics in terms of platforms and infrastructures -- we think that it is time to revisit STS’s take on politics, governance, and the ways in which STS can or should interrupt those technoscientific politics of the future and generate alternative practices, tools, and infrastructures. We all know ‘technoscience is politics by other means’ has become a core tenant of contemporary scholarship. While this phrase was a well-spring for research some decades ago, and has become a taken-for-granted assumption no longer in need of even modest verification, it has now little more than a ‘secret handshake’ among STS-insiders. The problem though is that this assumption no longer seems to serve scholars looking to ask difficult questions about the future of politics and the politics of the future, which now seem more important than ever. Whose politics? Which futures? Who or what is actually invited or involved to plan for the future of global and national politics? Submissions about governance, the state, imaginaries, politics, and the future or futures are all welcome in the sessions that populate this panel.

Individual Presentations

• Can State Surveillance Be Otherwise? Unpacking the Politics of Personal Identification Numbers - Baki Cakici, IT University of Copenhagen

• Ontohegemonical Objects, Infrastructure of Hegemony and Stabilisation of Desired Future - Andrzej Wojciech Nowak, Philosophy Institute Adam Mickiewicz University

• Science, STS and Populism: Why Democracies Need Science Studies - Rob Evans, Cardiff University; Harry Collins, Cardiff University

• The Limits of “Socio-Technical Imaginaries” and “Co-Production” as a Way to Know About the Future - Nicholas James Rowland, Pennsylvania State University

Session Organizers

• Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Technische Universität München

• Nicholas James Rowland, Pennsylvania State University

• Matthew Spaniol, Arhus University