Call for abstracts: Walkshop “Circulating Referees – Looking for Irritations with Spaces and Places of Science“
Dear colleagues,
We invite abstracts for the panel “Circulating Referees – Looking for Irritations with Spaces and Places of Science“. It will be realised in the form of a walkshop at the conference “CIRCULATIONS” organised by the STS-HUB.de, 15.-17.03.2023 at Human Technology Center Aachen.
The panel aims to shed light on socio-spatial locations and situations of science. In this way, we will also explore different ways in which science studies and higher education research situate themselves. For this purpose, the university rooms will be tentatively extended by a “walkshop”, which moves presentations into the public space and enables irritations outside of the conference setting.
The tension between autonomy and social relevance is a basic aspect of the social situatedness of the scientific system. For researchers, this manifests in the challenge of reconciling external expectations (as well as potentially personal motivations), for instance regarding participation, knowledge transfer or transformative impact, with the internal experience of the functioning of science. Science studies and higher education research deal with this tension in a variety of ways, e.g. by observing other research communities, being affected as a research area itself, and delivering knowledge to shape such developments. We want to investigate such entanglements between opening and autonomisation especially with a view to the spaces of science. The idealtypical “place of science” seems to have shifted from the university to the laboratory, and today there are indications of a further spatial differentiation of knowledge production. One can observe a restructuring in the form of new kinds of hybrid spaces, as demonstrated, for example, by the shift from the “laboratory” to the “living lab” (German “Reallabor”).
We are looking for contributions that investigate how tensions between opening science for societal demands and scientific autonomy are addressed, made productive or ignored in different places and spaces of science, both established and newly emerging ones. Contributions can approach the spatial possibilities and limits of science both in terms of choosing a particular location as well as content-wise in conceptual, empirical or practical terms. For instance, contributions
might explore:
New places and spaces of science for their ways of operation, challenges and potentials;
Established places and formats of research, education and cooperation and how they attempt to piggyback on such trends, lose relevance or transform;
Typical assumptions about relations between places and publics;
The irritation of public spaces by science and vice versa;
New ways to approach research and societal relevance in STS, HE research and related fields, for instance art-science links, data walks, engaged research, etc.;
What the study of science can learn from other fields of society, like art, sports or religion, regarding how such tensions manifest and are dealt with.
This panel seeks to encourage exchange between STS and higher education research, submissions from early career researchers including M.A. and PhD students as well as open experimentation with new formats. Contributions can be in English and German.
About the walkshop format: We will leave the HumTec together and explain the goals and procedures of the research format. Afterwards, 3-5 presentations will take place in urban settings within walking distance, such as Aachen’s Theaterplatz, Elisenbrunnen or Münsterplatz. The conveners will coordinate with speakers and organisers to choose the settings in relation to the content of the presentations. So please add any ideas or wishes to your abstract (in addition to the word limit), otherwise we will clarify this in the preparation for the conference. Finally, after returning to the conference room, we will reflect the experiences of the excursion in a moderated dialogue. The walkshop will be designed to be as barrier-free as possible. If you have any inquiries or concerns about participating in the walkshop, please contact the panel organisers.
SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACT
Please send your abstract in German or English (300 – 500 words) and a short biographical note including name, affiliation and ORCID number (if available) until October 31st 2022 to all three panel organisers:
Sebastian Gallitschke, Institut für Hochschulforschung (HoF) an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, sebastian.gallitschke@hof.uni-halle.de
Claudia Göbel, Institut für Hochschulforschung (HoF) an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, claudia.goebel@hof.uni-halle.de
Florian Hoffmann, Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer, fhoffmann@uni-speyer.de