Legal Pluralism and Science and Technology Studies: Exploring Sources of the Legal Pluriverse

In introducing the contributions to this special section, we explore the links between social and juridical concepts of normativity and science and technology. We follow the Legal Pluralism challenge to the notion of state law as the sole source of normative order and point to how technological transformation creates a pluralistic legal universe that takes on new shapes under conditions of globalization. We promote a science and technology studies (STS)-inspired reworking of Legal Pluralism and suggest expanding the portfolio of legally effective regimes of ordering to include the normativity generated by materiality and technology. This normativity is amply demonstrated in the case studies included in the papers which make up this special section. We conclude that the inclusion of approaches developed in STS research helps analytically to overcome what we view as an incomplete law project, one unable to deal with the technicized lifeworlds of a global modernity. The contributions to this special section illustrate that technomaterial change cannot be understood without recognition of the role of normative impacts, and conversely, the legal pluriverse cannot be understood without recognition of the normative role of techno-material arrangements.

Stabilisierung durch digitale Technik: Wie CAD-Programme zur räumlichen Ordnung in der Planung beitragen

Planung ist allgemein als Praxis des räumlichen Ordnens anerkannt: Anhand von planerischen Instrumenten, etwa Flächennutzungsplänen und Bebauungsplänen, wird gegliedert, gelockert und verdichtet. Während Planungsinstrumente selbst und deren Interpretation, praktische Nutzung und Umsetzung bereits vielfältig untersucht sind, bleibt die technische Umsetzung und deren aktive Rolle in Planungsprozessen hingegen zumeist unbeleuchtet. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich diesem Forschungsbedarf, indem er der Frage nachgeht, auf welche Art und Weise gängige Techniken – hier vorallem zeichnerische CAD-Programme – in Planungsprozessen wirken. Grundannahme ist hierbei, dass CAD-Programme Planung nicht nur ermöglichen, sondern wesentlich mitgestalten, da mithilfe von digitaler Technik eine Stabilisierung von räumlicher Organisation in Pläne eingeschrieben wird. Anhand prominenter Konzepte der Science and Technology Studies wird aufgezeigt, wie CAD-Programme urbaner Komplexität eine neue materielle Form – die des Plans – geben. Sie tragen wesentlich zu einem Kernbereich der Planung bei und damit zu einer spezifischen Ordnung unserer gebauten Umwelt.

Science and Technology Studies

Indholdet i skolens fag har altid været genstand for diskussioner om, hvordan sammenspillet mellem skolefag og videnskab kan og bør tage sig ud. I sin aktuelle form står teknologiforståelse på skuldrene af datalogi og design. Disse leverer vigtige inputs til faget men involverer ofte et målrettet fokus på digitale færdigheder og designprocesser, der fører til digitale løsninger på komplekse problemer. Vi argumenterer for, at STS-feltet (Science and Technology Studies) kan bidrage til en nuanceret teknologiforståelse, hvor digital myndiggørelse bliver et spørgsmål om at kunne bedrive teknologikritik. Denne evne kræver et begrebsligt udgangspunkt, og her byder STS sig til. Vi præsenterer tre begreber fra forskellige STS-positioner: mediering, teknologisk intentionalitet, og sociotekniske imaginationer. Først præsenterer vi begreberne – dernæst diskuterer vi, hvordan de kan danne udgangspunkt for en didaktik, der kvalificerer teknologikritikken i den digitale myndiggørelse.

Introduction

This chapter provides background context on the calls for doing (more) interdisciplinarity and explains our own positioning as to what interdisciplinarity actually is, as well as what we believe this book contributes to the study of said interdisciplinarity. Specifically, we discuss mainstream arguments for why interdisciplinary research is deemed to be a worthwhile endeavour by many researchers, policymakers, funders, and so on. We build on this by arguing that there is a unique—and currently under-fulfilled—role to be played by Science and Technology Studies (STS) in exploring the sociological dimensions of how large-scale (energy) research projects are actually carried out. Alongside these wider landscape discussions, we explain what this book contributes to the study of interdisciplinarity and to energy research, through our empirics and STS-inspired ideas. We also make clear how we define interdisciplinarity and disciplines and explain how we focus on problem-focused research that may (or may not) involve external stakeholders.

Introduction: Shifting Attention

In recent years, attention has become a matter of increasing public concern. New digital technologies have transformed human attention materially and discursively, reorganizing perceptual practices and inciting debates about them. The essays in this special issue emerged from a set of panels focused on attention at the 4S conference in New Orleans in 2019. They are all, in various ways, concerned with shifts among attention’s many meanings: between payment and care, instinct and agency, or vulnerability and power. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) sensibilities, these pieces examine how scientific and technical actors are invested in theorizing and capturing attention, while simultaneously engendering new forms of care, resistance, and critique. At a moment where the attention economy appears to be in transformative crisis, this collection maps a set of incipient directions that ask us to pay attention to not only attention itself but also to the many sociotechnical settings where experts and publics are shifting attention’s meaning and value.

How Robots Have Politics

In an influential essay, published in the 1980s, philosopher of technology Langdon Winner (1980), asked, ‘Do artefacts have politics?’ His answer, confirmed by subsequent decades of science and technology studies, was a resounding ‘Yes!’ Artefacts have political choices embedded in their design and entrench these politics in their applications. Moreover, because technologies are better suited to serving some ends rather than others, artefacts shape the societies in which they are developed by shaping the circumstances of their own use. This chapter explores how robots have politics and how those politics are relevant to their ethics. It suggests that, for a number of reasons, robots have more politics than do other sorts of artefacts.