About the Symposium

We are delighted to invite proposals for papers for the International Research Symposium on Post-Automation? Towards Democratic Alternatives to Industry 4.0, taking place at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, 11-13 September 2019. The Symposium uses a workshop format to explore the idea of post-automation, critically and constructively. Theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded papers are invited that address what a “post-automation” vantage point might bring to ongoing debates about how societies produce and consume, in light of social concern for sustainable developments, dignified work and social justice, and a business-led push for Industry 4.0 and circular economy.

Post-automation is a concept in the making. The idea is sparked by the observation that, globally, groups of people are appropriating and hacking digital technologies for design, prototyping, and manufacture that were implicated initially in successive waves of automation: code, sensors, actuators, computer numerically controlled machine tools, design software, microelectronics, internet platforms, 3D scanners/printers, video, etc. Yet, in place of work through typical in automation, such as enhanced appearing simultaneously productivity, managerial control, economic growth, people are subverting these technologies for other purposes – human creativity, dignified work, and sustainable production and consumption – and situating these activities in non-industrial and new-industrial spaces. The Symposium will interrogate these technological turnarounds: from their human-displacing and human-disciplining origins, through to the creative experiments and prototypes today. In short, exploring post-automation possibilities.

Clues and hints about post-automation emerge in diverse places: hackerspaces, makerspaces and fablabs; citizen monitoring platforms and open science projects; open hardware platforms and grassroots innovation initiatives; new crafting practices; repair, repurposing and upcycling workshops; libraries and educational institutes opening technology to popular experimentation; citizen laboratories and DIY urbanism; workplace struggles for human-centred, democratic technology. Many of these places work through networks that cut across conventional categories; appearing simultaneously to constitute a movement and infrastructure for social relations with technology radically different to the depopulated visions of cyber-physical systems in Industry 4.0.

An Interdisciplinary Call – Who Should Submit

This call is an invitation for diversity and plurality. Applicants from PhD students to senior Professors are welcome from science and technology studies, sociology of work, social anthropology, engineering, innovation studies, design, geography, sustainability studies, and other relevant areas. The key is to provide an explanation of how your proposed paper can contribute to an open, engaged and collaborative exploration of the idea of post-automation, and to see what work can and cannot be made of that idea. You can propose questions (and answers) that you think should be central to a post-automation research agenda. These might include, for example:

• How can post-automation alter perspectives, understandings and practices in technology-society relations?
• What methods can bring insight, facilitate dialogue, and assist developments in post-automation across the scales of projects, workshops, sectors and societies?
• How is post-automation manifesting in different places and circulating between places, for example across the global North and global South?
• How might social theory in post-automation reframe public debate and move policy beyond reactions to automation, and into proactive alternatives for sustainable technology-society relations?
• How post-automation might help to re-imagine an economy based on commons goods?

How to Apply

I. Please send a 500-word maximum paper abstract and 100-word bio for each author (including contact details and affiliation) as a single document. In both sections, please explain how you relate and contribute to the idea of post-automation. Please email your abstracts as a Word file to [email protected] stating the Symposium title in the subject area of the email. The deadline for abstracts and bios is 20 March 2019.

II. Selected participants will be required to produce a 4,000-5,000 word paper in advance of the Symposium by 15 July 2019 and present it for discussion there. At the Symposium we will read and discuss all the papers, and there will be group activities that map and explore emerging themes.

III. The Symposium will run from 11th September to 13th September 2019 at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. Symposium papers will be circulated amongst participants only.

IV. Once papers are accepted, the organisers will negotiate a special issue on post-automation with a leading scientific journal. Participants will contribute revised versions of their paper to the issue, drawing upon insights arising in the Symposium. Revised papers will be submitted to the journal.

V. The Symposium has no fees. Lunch, coffee breaks and the social dinner will be covered by the host organization. The organisers are able to cover the travel and accommodation costs for one author per paper only.

Upcoming Deadlines 2019

• 20 March: Abstracts Submission and Review
• 15 April: Decisions on Abstracts
• 25 July: Papers Submission
• 11-13 September: International Research Symposium
• December: Revised Papers Submitted to Journal for Peer Review”

Organisers

Adrian Smith – Science Policy Research Unit

Mariano Fressoli – Fundación Cenit

More info on this event can be found here.

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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

“Sharing Society. The Impact of Collaborative Collective Actions in the Transformation of Contemporary Societies”

Bizkaia Aretoa, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain)

May 23-24, 2019

Call for Papers and Poster Presentations

1. Context and Rationale

Although the concept of collective action has been widely used in the field of social sciences, giving rise to the area of ​​social movements studies, little research has focused on the collaborative aspect of this action. In recent years, the emerging field of studies on the “sharing economy” has shed some long-overdue light on this aspect. However, some of the cases that have been described as part of this phenomenon, such as Uber or AirBnB, lack key collaborative traits in both their setup and praxis. So much so that scholars have called for the use of the term “true sharing economy” to distinguish the latter from more nuanced and complex experiences.

The concept of “sharing society” is inspired by the definition of collaborative collective action (Tejerina, 2016): “the group of practices and formal and informal interactions that take place among individuals, collectives or associations that share a sense of belonging or common interests, that collaborate and are in conflict with others, and that have the intent of producing or precluding social change through the mobilization of certain social sectors.”

This conference stems from the research project “Sharing Society. The Impact of Collaborative Collective Action. Analysis of the Effects of Practices, Bonds, Structures and Mobilizations in the Transformation of Contemporary Societies,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO CSO2016-78107-R), and hosted by the Collective Identity Research Center, University of the Basque Country (Spain).

2. Scope and Objectives

This international conference sets out to analyze the characteristics, trajectory and impact of collaborative collective actions in a context of erosion of the welfare state. It also seeks to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns, as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of collaborative collective actions. The conference will address the following questions:

• How, when and where does collaborative collective action occur?
• Which are the characteristics of contemporary collaborative collective action?
• What are the practical, symbolic, and legal effects of collaborative collective actions for the forging and recovery of social bonds?
• What forms of interaction emerge from these types of actions?

We invite theoretical and empirical proposals that explore collaborative collective actions in different areas: work, production, consumption, culture, art, science, knowledge and education, solidarity with precarious groups, civic participation and politics. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Food and agricultural production: food sovereignty, agroecology, zero kilometer movement, food and sustainable soil experiences, urban agriculture and community gardens;
• Arts: art and the commons, collaborative art and new forms of creative commons, distributed design;
• Science and knowledge: collaborative forms of scientific production, citizen science;
• Care and co-housing: solidarity networks for personal care, health care, age care, childcare, personal quantification movement, co-housing;
• Culture: collaborative culture, open culture movement;
• Economy, work and consumption: collaborative economy, circular economy, new forms of collaborative work and co-working, collaborative consumption, time banks, platforms for sharing resources and experiences;
• Technology: Maker and DIY movement, open source technology initiatives, network manufacturing, medialab experiences, hacktivism;
• Politics: collaborative forms of political and institutional governance, networks of cities, institutions and citizenship, participatory democracy, participatory budgeting, open government, collective intelligence for democracy.

We encourage the submission of papers drawing on theoretical and methodological approaches from diverse fields of study, such as the social sciences, humanities, architecture, urban planning and design. We also invite contributions from actors working with citizen participation in the sciences, arts, media and/or politics (e.g. in cultural institutions, cultural policy, social media platforms, cooperatives, and NGOs).

See Sharing Society Project for complete details

Photo by Express Monorail

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We are happy to announce that IPE is now accepting applications for the 2019 Junior Fellowship!

We will be able to host one young researcher for a six-month paid fellowship during 2019. Research proposals should be related to IPE’s project “SUPER DONUT: Sustainability on the periphery – distilling numbers for tomorrow”.

IN SHORT

In 2017, IPE started a collaborative research project on indicators of sustainability under the working title SUPER DONUT. The main pillar of the project consists in (1) critically questioning the conceptual underpinning of the widespread macroeconomic modelling of transition towards a sustainable social metabolism in the 21st century (with a special emphasis on societies on the Southeastern semi-periphery of Europe); and (2) choosing indicators of social metabolism and development suitable for a scientific understanding of the sustainable social metabolism and for communicating with various social groups.

Simultaneously with the collection and analysis of data, as well as narrative and analytical justification of choices and normalisations of indicators, the team is developing modes of visualising indicators of sustainability along the lines of the ‘doughnut’ developed by Kate Raworth (Oxford). The indicators are presented as normalised values in the donut model, where the outer rim specifies the transgressions of known boundaries and the inner rim specifies shortfalls of desirable thresholds for a democratic society of significantly smaller environmental impact. Visual presentation of this indicator set is the essential communication tool of the research and advocacy activities of this project. Partial automation of the presentation of results for a broader range of countries is another activity under development.

…read more

The application deadline is January 10 2019. Write to [email protected].

Check out the application call with all the necessary information HERE.

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The selection of the designers was made by members of the local community, informed by the following criteria:

• Does the solution create value for small-scale farmers and society?
• Does the solution express empathy to user needs?
• Is the solution visionary and paves the way for others?

The selected designers who will lead the manufacturing of 4 prototypes during the workshop are:

• André Rocha, Adjunct Professor at ESELx – IPL and a Senior Product and Interaction designer.
• Angelos Pappas, Software developer and activist.
• Jonathan Minchin, Coordinator of the Green Fab Lab at Valldaura Labs, IAAC Campus in Barcelona.
• Trifonas Papaioannou, Maker and beekeeper.

We wish to thank all applicants for their contributions. The workshop will take place from July 30 to August 03 at Habibi.Works. It will be open for everyone so we hope you join us there.

We firmly believe in the power of collective creativity.

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Open Call For Participants

– A 2 day open collaborative online event dedicated to documenting circular economy solutions –

(Forum Topic)

Good documentation is key for decentralised collaboration and the collective set up of a sustainable circular economy. And good documentation needs its own time and attention. So OSCEdays starts a new and ongoing series of events called: Writers Weekends. And we invite you to join us!

Do you have an interesting circular economy solution, project or methodology? And you always wanted to document it properly – so others can build on it and engage in collaboration with you? But you never found the time to do it? Join our OSCEdays writers weekend.

Over the course of 48 hours we will create together globally connected documentation. We invite you to create documentation in the format of an ACTION protocol. But any form of documentation is welcome. The created ACTIONS and documentation can be used by everyone on the globe – for example during the next global OSCEdays event.

Join us.

For complete information, please go to the OSCEdays site.

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