The Sustainability Transformation programme area is happy to invite you to three GET-together lunch seminars on 9-10 April by three senior scholars. All seminars take place at Elise Ottesen-Jensens Hus EOJ-376 (and EOJ-377).
On Tuesday, 9 April, during 11:00-13:00, we will have a double bill, with Professor Kjetil Rommetveit starting with a talk (11:00-11:30) followed by questions and discussion (11:30-11:45) and a catered lunch (11:45-12:15), and then Professor Håvard Haarstad with a talk (12:15-12:45) followed by questions and discussion (12:45-13:00).
Expertise and democracy in the making of digital collective futures
Kjetil Rommetveit
In this talk I will focus on the role of visions and scenarios in policy making, and some ways in which they fail and succeed. I will describe some main strategic initiatives that have been central to the making of digital strategies for Europe, and that mobilised scenarios, visions and digital imaginaries for the sake of future growth and prosperity. I will discuss the role of expertise in the making of futures, and some related democratic challenges, including resistance to ‘rule by experts’. This includes questions relating to futures-making such as: who participates and who is left out, and increasing levels of distrust as enhanced and mediated through digital technologies. And, it includes situations where citizens and users do not want to live in the worlds envisioned and created by experts, innovators and policy makers.
Kjetil Rommetveit (Professor in Science, Technology and Society, Centre for the study of the sciences and humanities, University of Bergen) has a background in philosophy, law and science and technology studies. His main research interests are in governance and politics of technoscience, and in the overall evolution of the knowledge society and modernity (into conditions that can be called non-modern). He has studied interrelations of politics, governance and technoscience in domains ranging from biomedicine (genomics), over security (biometrics, surveillance and privacy) to energy transition and climate policies. Over the last years, his research especially focused on efforts to bring, social and biological reality into digital mediation and datafication (such as Internet of Things, smart electricity, smart technologies and AI).
Populist resistance to sustainable transitions
Håvard Haarstad
What do we make of all the resistance to sustainability transitions and green policies? There are episodes of this resistance in Norway, Europe and the rest of the world, from toll roads protests, to yellow vests and the ‘greenlash’ in the EU. I have argued that we, as researchers, have not taken the potential for this backlash properly into account in our theories. Maybe we are even partly to blame for what is happening? In this talk, I will discuss some of the ongoing trends, how we should adjust our theoretical perspectives, and what can be done to overcome populist resistance to sustainable transitions.
Håvard Haarstad is professor of human geography, and director for the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen. He is the external member of the board at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger.
On Wednesday 10 April, we will have catered lunch during 11:00-11:15, with a talk by Professor Adrian Smith during 11:15-11:45 followed by questions and discussion until 12:00, also based in EOJ-376.
Post-automation
Adrian Smith
Tremendous research, policy, and investment is directed towards a new wave of automation in modern societies. Most notable within policy commitments to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also in radical ideas for Fully Automated Luxury Communism, it seems automation is essential to the future. Advocates claim automation will renew capital accumulation, boost labour productivity, and extend managerial control in sustainable systems of production and consumption. Noting criticism about a problematic and misconceived ‘future essentialism’ in this automation advocacy, this seminar will turn to innovations in the industrious spaces existing on the margins of industrial societies and in the undercurrents of the automation wave. Here people are hacking, subverting and appropriating ostensibly automating technologies for purposes of creativity, collaboration, and care. Social capabilities in ‘post-automation’ are being cultivated; ‘post-‘ in the sense that technology development amongst these groups challenges the foundations of accumulation, productivity and control that drive automation. We will look at examples from makerspaces, citizen sensing, repair culture, decolonising technology, and platform co-operativism. Contrary to the essentialism of its advocates, there appears to be nothing automatic about automation. In paying greater attention to post-automation, maybe greater democratic deliberation can be opened up for more democratic and sustainable deliberations about our shared technological futures?
Adrian Smith is Professorial Research Fellow in Technology and Society at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. Most of his research considers the politics and governance of innovation for sustainability and involves collaborations with researchers and practitioners in Europe and Latin America. He is particularly interested in alternative technology initiatives that emerge in civil society settings (for example, see the book Grassroots Innovation Movements). You can read more about post-automation in the article here.
Governing Energy Transitions - University of Stavanger 