We invite you to immerse yourself in the theme Before Ruins and explore its evocative potential for science and technology studies in worlds coming to an end. And in new ones beginning. The Ruhr Valley situates Before Ruins in its extractivist past. It invites you to stand before ruins that have not yet completely deteriorated; before moments that we can still shape and that are being shaped by various actors from whom we can learn.
Save the date: 25-27 March 2026, Ruhr-University Bochum.
How was life before the ruins? How was renewable energy before fossil fuels? How did we use to live with floods? Before Ruins introduces a temporal vertigo, it encourages STS to pull what was before ruins into the moment of being before ruins. What is STS, not after progress, but before de-growth, not post-human but before multi-species? When we stand before ruins as STS scholars, what are we facing? What do we do? We must not solve or fix the coming of ends, but practice ways to endure, to shape conviviality and togetherness.
Find more general information on the conference website: https://stsing.org/before-ruins
Call for Cases
At conferences, participants often come together in pre-organised sessions or panels. During one day of the stsing e.V. 2026 conference, participants will come together around cases and concerns. The case organisers will have set the topic by responding to a call for cases, and preferably involve participants across the boundaries of STS and academia. Those signing up for the case will work together to answer a specific question.
Cases here refer to specific situations, problems, or sites that are rich in detail and complexity, such as abandoned industrial areas, ongoing remediation projects, contested infrastructure developments, or cybersecurity centres and SmartCity projects. Each case provides an opportunity for collective inquiry and learning from situated knowledge and local experts.
We see the case-format as a possibility to situate STS research. In 2026, this will take place in the Ruhr Valley, next time, maybe somewhere else. Your research may not be about the Ruhr area, but what happens if you think – and do – it through the area, through issues unfolding and rooted in this particular place of post-industrialism and before ruins?
Timeline
- Call for Cases: July 25th – October 15th
- Call for Case Participation: November 1st – December 1st
- Call for Papers (not case-based): September 30th – December 1st
- Registration: January 4th – February 15th
Submit your case proposal here:
https://survey.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/index.php/321829
Find more information about cases here:
https://stsing.org/before-ruins/call-for-cases