Events

Lecture for the Thursday CTS seminar (Center for Theoretical Study, Husova 4, 3rd floor - seminar room, 10-12am)

Archa Theatre in Prague, 8pm. Jaroslav Dušek - speaking, acting, dancing, singing; Dan Bárta - singing and various instruments; Pjér Lašéz - bass, guitar, singing, speaking; Zdeněk Konopásek - drums, percussion, trumpet; Viktor Zborník - lights.

Presentation for the international workshop on The potential and limitations of lists, Praha, Center for theoretical study, November 6-8, 2007.

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights). Blue days festival.

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Jaroslav Dušek, Pjér Lašéz, Zdeněk Konopásek, Viktor Zborník

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Jaroslav Dušek, Pjér Lašéz, Zdeněk Konopásek, Viktor Zborník

Jaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Jaroslav Dušek, Pjér Lašéz, Zdeněk Konopásek, Viktor Zborník

dJaroslav Dušek (speaking, acting, dancing, singing), Pjér Lašéz (bass, guitar, singing, speaking), Zdeněk Konopásek (drums, percussion, trumpet), Viktor Zborník (lights).

Presentation at the Annual Conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, Canada, October 11-13, 2007 (Section 15.8: Magic, religion, and science)

Presentation at the Annual Conference for the Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, Canada, October 11-13, 2007 (Section 8.1: Managing nature)

We study processes by which the European nature-reserve project NATURA 2000 is being implemented in the Czech Republic. These processes involve production and mobilisation of expertise as well as political negotiations and decision-making. Expert knowledge and scientific criteria were to play a decisive role in this project, any other criteria being only secondary. An extensive and systematic review of the state of nature was initiated. In the beginning, exhaustive catalogues of biotopes were created so that any piece of landscape could be classified during the subsequent fieldwork. Hundreds of collaborators of varying professional and scientific background were then hired to undertake an unprecedented mapping of the Czech nature. On the basis of such a mapping, lists of protected areas were created, negotiated and proposed for approval. We discuss these processes and procedures in order to highlight diversity of interests, strategies, practical purposes and applications that all together contribute to the creation of above-mentioned catalogues, maps, and lists (as “boundary objects” of a kind). Above all, we are interested in how the business of expert knowledge production and evaluation was from the very beginning intertwined with everyday administrative work of responsible regional bodies or with the political agenda of environmentalist NGOs. In conclusion, we confront such “messy” practical local arrangements with the primacy of purely expert criteria emphasised by the official NATURA 2000 documents and by participants in particular controversies over the proposed areas of protection.