<nettime> CfP: Winter Symposium: "Appropriating Technology For Societal Change"

[Johan Söderberg <johan.soderberg@sts.gu.se>]

   CfP: Winter Symposium: "Appropriating Technology For Societal Change"

   4-6th of March, 2016


   Study Circle 6 of the Nordic Summer University (NSU) holds its winter
   symposium on:  Do-It-Yourself in Anthropocene: New Political
   Imaginaries


   A planetary, ecological collapse threatens to end the world as we know
   it. International negotiations are being held without results. Both in
   the engineering community and in the ecology movement , attempts are
   made to develop alternatives from below. The training of technophile
   engineers and technophobic environmentalists places them in opposite
   camps on most issues. What these two communities have in common,
   however, is a shared problematic (i.e. technology) and a Do-it-yourself
   attitude towards societal problems. Under the pressure of a perpetual,
   ecological crisis, a hybrid imaginary is emerging. A case in point is
   the establishment of `open source ecology villages' in the countryside
   in the US, in Ireland and in Spain. Another example is initiatives to
   secure food sovereignty through open sourced, automated greenhouses,
   tailored for the needs of urban dwellers. In either case, the
   universalistic aspiration of the engineering culture meets the
   particularism and the small-is-beautiful philosophy of the
   environmentalists. This nascent movement articulates a new cultural
   imaginary, utopic and apocalyptic at the same time. The winter session
   of study circle no. 6 will explore this new imaginary, its promises and
   pitfalls.

   In order to participate at the winter symposium, submit your proposal
   to one of the coordinators of the circle before November 15, 2015. We
   accept applications for presentations of papers and workshops as well
   as just participation. Please submit a short description (a few hundred
   words) of the paper or workshop you intend to present at the seminar
   together with a short bio. We welcome a range of topics and
   presentations, from engineering and the social sciences to more
   experience-based and practically oriented interventions. We strive for
   a mixture of participants, including academics, students, practitioners
   and activists, as well as in disciplinary background.

   The symposium will be held in the extended Göteborg area in Sweden,
   from Friday 4th till Sunday 6th of March. Participation fee is 500 SEK
   (50 euro). It covers food and accommodation. It might also be possible
   to apply for travel subventions, conditioned on available funds. For
   more information about the circle, please contact the coordinators.

   Johan Söderberg: johan [dot] soderberg [at] sts [dot] gu [dot] se
   Gustav Eek: gustav [dot] eek [at] fripost [dot] org
   Website:
   http://nordic.university/study-circles/appropriating-science-and-techno
   logy-for-societal-change/

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