New developments, such as, for example, new genetic testing, digitized work environments, biobanks, 3D printed tissues or high-level radioactive waste, create promises and expectations, but also entail great uncertainty with regard to societal and political impacts. In this respect, we observe the development of imaginative and interdisciplinary dialogues pursuing multiple dimensions of possible outcomes and normatively evaluating such outcomes. In order to question and elaborate on the "trading zones" where such dialogues take place, we encourage submissions to present papers and/or posters on one of the three following subthemes: genomics and public health, safety and nuclear energy, and governance of the knowledge societies.

Argument

The SPIRAL Research Centre (University of Liège, Belgium), from its beginning, located itself as an hybrid space between risk research, science and technology studies and public policy. The importance of doing so can be captured by referring to ‘trading zones’, Peter Galison’s (1977) concept indicating interactions and exchanges across boundaries and between scientific disciplines. We expand his concept to cover interactions in our technological societies, and the “pidgins” that emerge enabling some communication or collaboration in which various perspectives, interests, visions, imaginaries, narratives are combined. This occurs anyway, but the experience of SPIRAL has shown that this perspective allows understanding issues of technological societies and contributes to handling them productively. Hence, it is appropriate for the 20^th anniversary conference to take “Trading Zones in Contemporary Technological Societies” as its theme. New developments, such as, for example, new genetic testing, digitized work environments, biobanks, 3D printed tissues or high-level radioactive waste, create promises and expectations, but also entail great uncertainty with regard to societal and political impacts. There is a need to engage in an imaginative dialogue pursuing multiple dimensions of possible outcomes and to normatively evaluate such outcomes. This requires opening up of existing ways of handling issues (Stirling 2008). Thus, there is a need for spaces (Rip and Joly 2013) favouring interdisciplinary cross-breeding to deal with these issues, and the latter should also be democratically debated. Boundary trading between experts and others (publics, policymakers, patients) is a very good entry point for “inquiry into the relations between science and power to ask how they come about, and what functions they serve in channelling both knowledge and politics” (Jasanoff 2003: 394).

Confirmed keynote speakers: Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard), Andrew Stirling (Sussex), Pierre-BenoîtJoly (IFRIS/Paris), Arie Rip (Twente).

We encourage submissions to present papers and/or posters on one of the three following subthemes, reflecting major lines of work in SPIRAL, and organized as parallel streams in the second day of the conference:

• Genomics and Public Health

The production and use of genomic information in medical practices introduces issues, also at the level of public health systems and society. These evolutions of genomic technologies and their uptake recast social interactions and power relationships. New norms are produced by scientists, medical practitioners, patients, private firms, consumers or policymakers. Proposals for papers should go beyond the traditional focus on ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI), and bring original contributions to the analysis of biomedical innovation and the normative stakes of genomic medicine by locating them in a biopolitical understanding (bioeconomy, public health systems, and the governmentalities involved).

Chair: Sheila Jasanoff

• Safety and Nuclear Energy

The development of nuclear energy is accompanied by concerns about major accidents, occupational safety, and waste management, in a very long time scale. Innovative or under-used perspectives – beyond the classical ‘risk analysis’ framework – are needed to open up the governance of such phenomenon: sociology of organization, STS vulnerability analysis, communication studies, and more broadly socio-technical approaches. Proposals for papers can present insights that delineate original and innovative frameworks, methods or results contributing to open up the way technological societies deal with Safety and Nuclear Energy.

Chair: Andrew Stirling

• Governance of the Knowledge Societies

In today’s configurations of capitalism, knowledge has become key to contemporary politico-economic strategies. Policies everywhere declare a strategic interest in a “knowledge-based economy”, where knowledge is perceived as closely linked with economic growth through technological innovation. Critical analysis has led to new visions combining economic growth and social welfare based on the continuous creation of new knowledge and its applications. It is accompanied with fundamental questions: What knowledge? By whom? For whom? Under which modalities? Proposals for papers can focus on how knowledge is incorporated into practices of governance, and in reverse, how practices of governance influence the making and use of knowledge. Chair: Pierre-Benoît Joly.

Submission guidelines

Deadline for abstract submission (400 words max.) : April 30

October 15-16 2015 : conference

More info, abstract submission and registration here.

Scientific Committee

• Prof. Sebastien Brunet (University of Liège and IWEPS)
• Dr. Frederic Claisse (IWEPS)
• Dr. Pierre Delvenne (SPIRAL Research Centre, University of Liège)
• Dr. Catherine Fallon (SPIRAL Research Centre, University of Liège)
• Dr. Kim Hendrickx (University of Leuven)
• Dr. Claire Lobet (University of Namur)
• Prof. François Mélard (University of Liège)
• Dr. Pierre Ozer (University of Liège)
• Céline Parotte (SPIRAL Research Centre, University of Liège)
• Prof. Arie Rip (University of Twente)
• Nicolas Rossignol (SPIRAL Research Centre, University of Liège)
• Dr. Catrinel Turcanu (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, SCK-CEN)
• Dr. Ine Van Hoyweghen (University of Leuven)
• Dr. Michiel van Oudheusden (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, SCK-CEN)

References

• Galison, P. (1997). Image & logic: A material culture of microphysics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Stirling, A. (2008). "Opening Up" and "Closing Down" Power, Participation, and Pluralism in the Social Appraisal of Technology.Science, Technology & Human Values, 33, 262-294.
• Rip, A., and Joly, P.-B. (2013). Emerging Spaces and Governance. Emerging Spaces and Governance. Position paper submitted to EU-SPRI Forum, available on its website.
• Jasanoff, S. (2003).Breaking the Waves in Science Studies. Comment on H.M. Collins and Robert Evans, `The Third Wave of Science Studies'. Social Studies of Science, 33/3, 389-400.