Power and politics: conferences, workshops, talks

Presentation for the conference of Czech Sociological Association, Hradec Králové, November 28-30. 2018

Discussion meeeting organised by The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, with participation of Petr Bílek (FFUK), Irena Reifová (FSV UK) and others. Praha, FF UK, Náměstní Jana Palacha 2, 17.30, room 201

Presentation for Thursday seminars of CTS, Husova 4, Praha 1, 3rd floor (the seminar room)

Presentation for the 4S conference in San Diego (USA, California), October 9-12, 2013

Presentation for Thursday seminars of CTS, Husova 4, Praha 1, 3rd floor (the seminar room)

Presentation for the 15th conference of Biograf, June 7-9 2013, Hoješín near Seč (Chrudim)

Presentation at the international workshop Experts and the public in decision-making processes, Praha, October 25 2012

During last several decades, science and technology studies (STS) have had developed a convincing view, which challenges the idea of something purely technical as well as the idea of science external to what we call society or politics. Instead, STS authors write about complex socio-technical controversies that are articulated within a kind of hybrid forums, i.e., assemblies consisting of various elements and mixing together the lay and the expert, science and politics, nature and culture. This view has had some impact on the official EU and national policies and ideologies aiming at “democratization of expertise” (Liberatore 2001), “technical democracy” (Callon et al. 2009), or “robust and sustainable knowledge society” (Felt & Wynne 2007). The STS notion of the socio-technical is taken as a support for various forms of public and stakeholder involvement in what traditionally used to be a matter of expert assessment and decision making. Especially after the painful European experience with GMO it has become commonplace that a “social (ethical, political, cultural) dimension” is taken more seriously. Formally organized public consultations and dialogues are taken as prevention against possible social conflicts. I want to argue, however, that a number of shortcomings occurred during this translation of STS lessons into the language and procedures of practical politics. Based on my recent experience with the EU project on socio-technical challenges for implementing geological disposal of nuclear waste I will clarify some typical misunderstandings about the STS perspective. Contrary to what is too often supposed, talking about an issue as socio-technical (in the STS sense of the term) does not simply mean that certain political aspects are debated besides/before/after the technical ones. Rather, it implies approaching all possible aspects as both social and technical. To take the notion of socio-technical seriously thus means debating the social and the technical together, at the same time and as a single thing. Such an approach, I will also insist, can hardly be achieved/embodied by means of inviting selected activists (representing “the social”) and engineers (representing “the technical”) to spend time together exchanging standpoints and perspectives in a “fair dialogue”. When meetings with similar design are organized (and they often are), it not only deviates from what can reasonably be argued from within STS, but it also makes the idea of democratic governance in the age of science and technology empty and perverted.

Presentation at the Radioactive waste management forum on stakeholder confidence (FSC), Praha, October 22-24, 2012

InSoTeC (International Socio-Technical Challenges for Geological Disposal; 2011-2013) is an EC-sponsored project aiming to generate a better understanding of the complex interplay between the technical and the social. It broadens the stream of socio-political research on radioactive waste management to include research on social aspects of science and technology in this matter and on the technical translation of socio-political requirements.

Presentation at the annual conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) & EASST, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 17-20, 2012

We are studying the site selection process for the deep geological disposal of nuclear waste in the Czech Republic. We understand this as a socio-technical controversy. Talking about the “socio-technical” does not simply mean that social aspects are considered alongside technical ones. Rather, it means focusing on how they are managed as elements that cannot easily (and without costs) be separated. The current siting phase in the Czech Republic highlights public negotiations and political decision-making. Underneath this “political” surface, however, technical developments are also understood to be taking place. For instance, municipalities sometimes realize rather well that when preliminary research is being proposed on their territories, “just for the sake of later qualified decision”, it also implies bringing the reality of geological disposal in the locality a step closer. They sense that better knowledge elaborating on the safety case for a repository will not be feasible without constructing a “rock laboratory” on site. And this knowledge-production site not only (by definition) resembles the future disposal facility, but can easily be transformed into one. Making the technology socially acceptable implies making it simultaneously more real. On other occasions, nonetheless, the same people strictly separate the technical from the social, insisting upon the purely political nature of the current phase in the site selection process. By making the intricacies of such boundary work more visible and graspable, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of nuclear waste management as a delicate contemporary challenge.

Lecture within the MA sociology course "Science, technology, and politics", Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno

Presentation at the annual conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Washington, USA, October 28-November 1, 2009

We are studying how reported phenomena such as having visions of Jesus Christ or seeing and talking to Virgin Mary are practically dealt with – i.e., accounted, doubted, believed, investigated, recognized as true or false… or, as part of all this, translated into something else (for instance, into a psychiatric symptom). Besides analyzing historical material, theological and pastoral literature, thematically related pop-cultural artifacts, contemporary psychiatric cases and respective religious experiences, we conduct an extensive case study of Marian apparitions that took place 1991-95 in Litmanová, Slovakia. Based on this heterogeneous empirical ground, we want to discuss the relationship between religious and scientific approaches to the phenomena: what a how constitutes “the truth” of this or that apparition? Where and when? Although the religious and the scientific are often seen as antagonistic, we offer a more subtle and complex view, in which ambivalence, partiality and practical relevance play important, and often “positive”, affirming roles. The mutual relationship between scientific and religious views of the issue is further complicated by the observation that, for instance, one can identify multiple and often diverging “truths” of apparition within the religious practice. In fact, it is not only us, STS inclined researchers, but religious people themselves (clerics as well as laics), who often appreciate not so much some intrinsic qualities and genuineness of the miraculous events themselves, but rather “all the transformations [the reported encounter] undergo later in the hands of others” (Latour). By focusing on controversial piety and devotionalism “in action”, we try to better understand neglected aspects of contemporary religious life. In this respect, our research can be debated as an(other) application of STS inspired views in the field of religion studies.

Lecture within the MA sociology course "Science, technology, and politics", Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno

Lecture within the MA sociology course "Science, technology, and politics", Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno