Theme: Mastering the Rhythm of Science, Technology and Society
Venue: Main Campus, National Taitung University, Taitung City, Taiwan
(Website: https://clab.org.tw/about/)
Submit your proposals: link
Conference Dates: June 22nd-23rd, 2024
Pre-conference field trip: June 21st, 2024
Mainstream and alternative sciences and technologies are ubiquitous in our daily lives, although both their appropriateness and the timing of their use vary according to different circumstances. We have personally experienced the technological and social transformations of varied knowledges, tools, and products in the domains of policy, industry, the environment, care, medicine, and education. Facing these various changes, we often find gaps between the abilities, knowledge, values, and responsibilities of different actors and stakeholders in terms of their power and their mastery of relevant knowledges and technologies.
The theme of this year’s conference is Mastering the Rhythm of Science, Technology, and Society. Starting from the perspectives of time, timing, and temporality, we invite abstracts from across disciplines and professions both within and outside academia. Submissions may include oral presentations, roundtables, posters, workshops, and artistic works or performances which collectively discuss how different factors influence the rhythm of humans and more-than-human actors mastering science and technology; and the harmonies and disharmonies these produce.
For example, can technologically-enhanced educational materials for special education be universally applied to all varieties of physical conditions? How does infrastructure cope with changing natural forces? Can mobile phones and the internet transcend ethnic and religious boundaries? Can food industry health regulations cover ingredients which have already been used for hundreds of years? As climate change becomes more severe, how do traditional farming calendars, Indigenous ecological knowledge, ocean navigation, and natural resource management become disharmonized with contemporary conditions? What view of time is produced from the collision between contemporary industry and the “weather-world” of land, ocean, and mountain?
Between the international trade system, national governance, civil society, and traditional kinship networks; both individuals and groups mastering the research, development, application, and evaluation of various sciences and technologies often discover the rhythm is not right, the implementation is not smooth, and the results are unclear. Researchers already understand that differences in views of time at different levels – from individuals, social groups, countries, to the globe – influence how resources are distributed, and produce various types of social inequalities. Through interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations – taking into account the temporal dimensions of friction, lubrication, and fermentation-this conference will help various stakeholders and organizations develop friendlier relations with both living and non-living things.
This year’s conference is organized by National Taitung University, which has the development vision to become an international green university. The call for papers covers various topics related to daily life, and invites discussions that can transcend times and cultures, and focus on the rhythm of science and technology production, transformation, application and reflection. Through the harmonization, contrasts, instabilities and other aspects of rhythm, the conference aims to construct a discussion platform for sharing research experiences which is heterogeneous and constructively incomplete, even while in pursuit of common experience.
We encourage submissions addressing the following topics.
1. The temporality of paradigm shifts in the history of science;
2. The role of time and futurity in the philosophy and ethics of science and technology in medicine and war;
3. The discordant or mixed rhythms of energy policy and civil society;
4. The multiple temporal logics of institutions, infrastructures, and transportation logistics;
5. The (re)assembly processes of information technology, user experience design, and digital communication;
6. Opportunities for social integration in special education and barrier-free technology development;
7. Multi-species co-habitation, technology, and spatiotemporal scales in Satoyama and Satoumi;
8. Spatiotemporal scales and ethnic interaction in the creative practices of performance, art, literature, and music;
9. The politics of expiration in food preservation, spoilage, and fermentation;
10. Other issues related to themes of rhythm, time, timeliness and temporality in science, technology, and society.
Proposed presentation formats:
1. Oral Presentation Panels: Suitable for presenters with papers presenting clear research results. Each organized panel proposal should include 3-4 papers. Panelists should invite their own chair, and if they wish, a discussant. Submissions should include an abstract (500 words) describing the panel, in addition to an abstract for each paper (500 words).
2. Roundtables: Suitable for scholars, professionals, policymakers, NGO workers, and other stakeholders who want to share experiences and discuss specific issues. Submissions should include a summary of the proposed topic (500 words), in addition to a list of panelists and moderators including background information.
*If any overseas panel or roundtable panelists need to join the panel virtually, please inform the conference organizer during the panel proposal submission, or before the registration deadline.
3. Workshops: Suitable for attendees still in the process of conducting research or developing research projects, or for those daring to innovate new forms of knowledge production and dissemination. Submissions should include a proposal (500 words) detailing the plan for the workshop, and a list of organizers and participants
4. Individual Oral Presentations: Suitable for individual presenters with papers presenting clear research results. The conference organizers will arrange individual submissions into panels. Submissions should include an abstract (500 words).
5. Posters and Creative Presentation Formats: Suitable for those wanting to submit work including, but not limited to posters, videos, art, and other creative works. However, workshop participants and creative presenters must attend in person. We will not accept virtual attendance.
Why Taitung City?
Taitung City is located in Taitung County, southeastern Taiwan. Once regarded as “the backyard” and periphery of Taiwan, Taitung is actually a vibrant region well-known for multi-ethnic cultures. Now renowned as a frontier for addressing climate change, promoting traditional/indigenous ecological knowledge learning, oceanic cultures, and forestry management, Taitung has gradually drawn STS scholars’ attention. In recent years, the Taitung residents have increasingly adopted the practice and discourse of a slow economy and lifestyle to respond to the global political economy and neoliberal influences. They also reflect on our sustainable future. The annual meeting will be held in Taitung, where we can experience such an emerging rhythm. We can also explore various kinds of interaction and integration between science, technology and society. By breaking the bipolar opposition between long/short distance, fast/slow pace, more/fewer resources, and big/small scale, we will exchange ideas concerning various sides on the spectrum in order to seek possibilities to adapt, negotiate with, solve or tolerate the diverse rhythms of science, technology and society. We pay particular attention to disharmony, discord, contradiction, and conflict, and also the driving forces for innovation and transformation.
Logistics:
National Taitung University is located in Taitung City, which is a one-hour flight or a four-hour train from Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan (it takes one hour for a metro trip from the international airport to Taipei City). Or, it takes 2-3 hours to take the train from Kaohsiung City (where another international airport is located in this city in south Taiwan) to Taitung. If you are traveling from other countries, you are highly recommended to arrive in Taiwan on or before June 20th.
Conference schedule:
20th February, 2024: Deadline for abstract submission
17th March, 2024: Announcement of abstract acceptance
[The subsequent open registration and agenda announcement time will be announced separately]
31st March, 2024: Tentative program announcement
31st May, 2024: Deadline for conference registration
21st June, 2024: Pre-conference field trip in Taitung County
22nd-23rd June, 2024: Conference
Organizers: Taiwan Science, Technology & Society Association and the Department of Cultural Resources and Leisure Industries of National Taitung University
1） For the Chinese version of Call for Papers, please visit 臺灣科技與社會研究學會2024年年會 大會主題： 「掌握科技與社會的節奏」 – 台灣科技與社會研究學會 Taiwan STS Association
2) Chinese and English can be used for oral presentations. Most of the other events will be in Chinese, while the organizer will provide real-time translation In certain events.