Call for Abstracts - Social Change in Science and Technology Studies

SESSION 11: ICT USE, ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND THE CHANGING PRACTICES
Harald Rohracher, Linköping University, Sweden
Toke Haunstrup Christensen, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Norway
Thomas Berger, Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture, Graz, Austria

Energy consumption related to the provision and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is steeply rising. The central question we are asking in this session is: How can we better understand social practices of ICT use and how can we find entry points to engage with people’s attitudes and to promote less energy intensive patterns of ICT usage? Of particular interest is also the use of ICT among young people.

Therefore we ask for contributions that analyse the potential of different strategies to promote behavioural change in energy use, discuss current European policy, present qualitative and/or quantitative results of recent projects or try to critically reflect the concept of behavioural change (and its cultural and technological embedding) on a broader theoretical level.

SESSION 12: INTERSECTIONALITY AND DIVERSITY ISSUES IN CHANGING ICT PRACTICES
Anita Thaler, Thomas Berger, Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture, Graz, Austria
Jennifer Dahmen, University of Wuppertal, Germany

Information and communication technologies (ICT) cannot only be described as an arena for diverse users but moreover for diverse technology practices. The cliché of ICT users being white male nerds sitting in front of a computer, writing programmes and hacking does not longer match with reality. Computers, smart phones, tablets and social media applications have become everyday companions in society.  This means that studies based on a general differentiation of ICT users by one single category (e.g. age or gender) do not cover the diverse sets of user constellations that can be found nowadays. To take a look at the various technology practices across social categories can help to overcome perpetuating gender stereotypes (for instance the assumption of young females being less interested in gaming).

In this session we are interested in research results and ongoing project experiences dealing with changing ICT practices and learning technology from an intersectional and diversity perspective. We are especially interested in approaches aiming at changing ICT practices towards more efficient energy consumption (“green” or “smart” ICT use and/or aiming at gender equality in ICT).

Therefore we ask for contributions that address some of the following questions:

How can intersectionality and diversity approaches contribute

• to a better understanding of ICT practices and how to change them?
• to identify user interests and needs better?
• to create equal / inclusive learning and teaching environments especially for young people?

SESSION 13: QUEER FEMINISIT SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY STUDIES
AG Queer STS

What does integrating a queer perspective into the perspectives of science, technology and society (STS) studies mean? How can queer sciences and queer technologies look like?
The working group (AG) Queer STS answers the question partly by integrating marginalised positions and questioning the general validity of hegemonic positions and norm settings in science and technology. Furthermore, we analyse and reflect how these hegemonic positions and norm settings come into existence through science and technology. For instance, we analyse scientific studies based on normative everyday life assumptions about the gender binary and point out mechanisms which marginalise or even pathologise individuals who are not conforming within the binary of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. We discuss alternatives to the binary concept of gender (e.g. an intersexual continuum) and how (or if at all) we can integrate them in our empirical STS research.

In this session we invite contributions dealing with further answers to the question of “How can STS be ‘queered’?” and want to include different angles and approaches.
 Submitted papers can be both, theoretical and empirical and contain results of finished studies or work in progress.

Additionally we explicitly encourage presentations aside from hegemonic scientific talks (e.g. performances) to thematise queer science and technology.

SESSION 14: MUSIC, MATERIALITY AND SUBJECTIVITIES
Georg Fischer, Berlin, Germany
David Waldecker, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Martin Winter, RWT University of Aachen, Germany

Musical practices are generally built around the interplay between several technological artefacts and social actors. Dependent on specific areas in the musical world, the production might encompass acoustic or electrified instruments, amplifiers, and sound engineering equipment in general. Consumption might encompass records or digital equivalents, iPods and headphones, or complex sound systems. So far, Science and Technology Studies have neglected the aesthetic uses of technology and the role of technology in certain musical styles, e.g. of the record player and the digital sampler for Hip Hop and Techno genres. Of course, music, in reference to musical instruments, has always been technological. In fact, the piano was one of the first more complex machines allowed in the bourgeois living room (cf. Weber 2006 [1921]). The possibility to record music created not only a shift in the distribution of music and the music business but a whole new field of careers, devices and buildings.

These material conditions of musicking relate to subjectivities in specific ways. For instance, the electric guitar and the domain of sound engineering in general can be described as linked to particular constructions of masculinity. Tia DeNora (2006) explains how changes in musical style in the late 19^th century led to the piano becoming less of an instrument for female players and more of a virtuoso instrument associated with male genius. Similarly many instruments appear as ethnically connoted.

The relation between subjectivities and musical materiality should be discussed along the following questions:

• How are musical materialities embedded in processes of co-construction or into actor- networks? How are subjectivities and materialities linked in concrete musical practices?
• Which role does the aesthetic character of musical material play and how does it differ from e.g. epistemic practices?
• Which possibilities to cross dominant orders are there in employing “queer” ways to use sound technologies?
• Which specificities come into play regarding different material conditions of producing and consuming music, e.g. regarding the analogue/digital differentiation?
• What does it mean to make music with regards to recording, mixing, sampling and professions such as DJs, sound engineers, equipment producers?
• What is the role of knowledge and social discourse and how do they relate to materiality in musical practices?

WORKS CITED
DeNora, Tia 2006: Music as Agency in Beethoven‘s Vienna, in: Ron Eyerman / Lisa McCormick (ed.): Myth, Meaning, and Performance. Towards a New Cultural Sociology of the Arts, Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm, pp. 103 – 119.
Weber, Max 2004 [1921]: Zur Musiksoziologie, in: Max Weber Gesamtausgabe Sect. 1, Vol. 14, Tübingen: Siebeck, pp. 144 – 280.