We accepted two dozen exciting cases for the conference. The case format of the Before Ruins conference has been interpreted by members of the community in multiple, inspiring ways. You will find different methods on how to work together and a heterogeneity of translations of how to attend to the theme. Find the full selection of cases below.
Please note that due to the limited capacity of the venue, participation in the conference is only possible if you are actively involved as an organiser or a participant. This also means that we assume that everyone who joins the conference (including paper presenters) to also participate in a case, since this is the heart of our event.
The case organisers selected the participants based on their applications in January 2026.
List of cases
- Anarchive of time – remembering and imagining before ruins
- Archives of (In)action: German academic complicity from South Africa to Palestine
- Artistic approaches to aluminium extraction in the Ruhr Valley
- Before the Ruins of Speed - The Transrapid as an Abandonment of a Sociotechnical Future
- Digital Twins before Ruins
- Doing feminist and anti-colonial science - art and stories at the kitchen table as intervention
- Duisburg Ruhrort – From an industrial to a sustainable and just neighborhood
- Empowering Map Collection Research with Digital Tools
- From Friction to Cooperation: Rethinking Heterogeneous Positions in Collaborate Experiences
- Poetic place-making amidst coal’s multiple afterlives: A laboratory of social dreaming in Recklinghausen Süd
- Post-Coal Futures in Lusatia: Mobility and Communication Infrastructures as Sites of Structural Transformation
- Sorting Biographies in Ruins and Fragments: Computational Methods as a Promising Approach for STS?
- Toxic Heritage Ruhr
- Urban (hi-)stories in past and present, Dortmund edition. An enhanced walkshop format.
- What is participation in your case? — A workshop to methodographically analyse and jointly reflect on the opportunities and challenges of participatory research approaches as a case in and for STS
- Who and What Tells the Future? Re-storying Deindustrialised Places Across Europe through Everyday Objects
The following cases are cancelled