CALL FOR TRACK
Science and Technology Studies in (post)-pandemic age
Science and Technology Studies in (post)-pandemic age: intersections of bodies, biological entities, biomedical artefacts and politics
The 8th STS Italia Conference will be held in Trieste, Italy, on June 17-19, 2021. The conference is organized by the Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies, in collaboration with the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Trieste.
We are now inviting track proposals for a special conference stream about the ways in which SARS-CoV-2 pandemic challenges established boundaries between disciplinary fields, about what is the space of STS in this evolving landscape, and to what extent the coming (post)-pandemic times call into question how STS understand of technoscience.
The selected tracks will be included as part of the formal call for papers, which will be reopened on November 9, 2020. The submitted tracks are meant to engage with the general theme of the conference: “Dis/Entangling Technoscience: Vulnerability, Responsibility and Justice”, taking the SARS-CoV-2 (post)-pandemic age as a vantage point of their reflection.
------->This call is open to scholars who do not already have an accepted abstract or track submitted within the general calls expired respectively in October 2019 and February 2020<-------
The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is questioning consolidated boundaries between disciplinary fields, asking experts and scientists to close the gap between life sciences, social sciences and humanities with the aim to address the impact of SARS-CoV-2 across the world. Indeed, the pandemic is leading to a radical transformation in the organization of work, mobility, health and education services, as well as in intimacy, emotions and relations. This scenario is opening the door to a new global politics of life, which seems to radically challenge the conceptual and methodological tools hitherto mobilized by the social sciences and, in particular, by STS to understand the governance of public health and biomedicine. In this respect, as nicely argued by Lachenal and Thomas (2020, see “COVID-19: When history has no lessons”, in History Workshop), analyses of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic “based on precedents prove problematic, as they might orient actors towards outdated strategies.”
How can STS foster our understanding of the ways in which the current COVID-19 outbreak is changing the role of technoscience in society, and the politics of life at large? What challenges does the STS community face in building a renewed theoretical and methodological framework to explore these changes? Considering these questions as a starting point, we welcome panel proposals covering a wide variety of topics and domains, including (but not limited to) the following:
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The emergence of new information and sociotechnical infrastructures;
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The emergence of new health (self)-surveillance devices and practices;
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The reconfiguration of biopolitics in (post)-pandemic age;
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The reconfiguration of public health and care practices;
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The contestation of expert knowledge in a digital and interactive media environment;
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Environmental sustainability, adaptation and resilience in (post)-pandemic age
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Work and organizational technology in (post)-pandemic age;
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The relationship between technology and gender in pandemic times crisis;
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Medical practices and the public shaping of biomedical research in (post)-pandemic age;
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The reshaping of disciplinary boundaries in SARS-CoV-2 research;
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The role of computational models and simulations in (post)-pandemic policy-making.
Track proposals should be submitted via email to the organising committee, <>, by October 23, 2020.
Submissions for thematic tracks should be written in Italian or English using the template available here: <template>. They should include a short description of the proposed theme (max. 400 words) and information about the convenors (max. 50 words for each convenor, including email addresses). Convenors will be notified of track acceptance by October 31, 2020. Convenors will independently set and oganise session according to the numerical constraints and logistics issues which will be specified by the conference organisers. Convenors who consider an abstract interesting but not suited to their session will be free to redirect the abstract to the scientific board for submission to another track. If a session draws fewer than three abstracts, the scientific board will decide whether to run the track or merge it with another track.
IMPORTANT DATES
September 23, 2020
October 23, 2020
October 31, 2020
November 9, 2020
December 18, 2020
January 22, 2021
February 21, 2021
April 16, 2021
May 23, 2021
June 17–19, 2021
Special call for tracks published
Deadline for special track submission
Notification of track acceptance or rejection
Reopening of the call for abstracts
Deadline for abstract submission
Notification of abstract acceptance / rejection & announcement of logistics
Early registration deadline
Late registration deadline
Publication of the final conference programme
Conference