The upcoming stsing e.V. conference Before Ruins 25-27 March 2026 at the Ruhr-University Bochum now opens submissions with this call for case participation, open until December 15th (AoE, Anywhere on Earth time).

We accepted close to two dozen exciting cases for the conference. The case format 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.

Colleagues (including students) are now invited to apply for case participation. Please read and enjoy the case descriptions. Choose the case that suits you the best, and submit the form below according to the case organisers’ requests (different cases need different information to prepare).

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 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.

Apply for one of the cases via this form: https://survey.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/index.php/499966?lang=en

After the deadline, case organisers will accept approximately two dozen participants. In case you should not be accepted for a case, you will get a second chance to apply for participation in those cases that still have availability. Please also note that case participation counts as active participation. If you need it for funding your participation, we are happy to attest this on request.

List of cases

• Duisburg Ruhrort – From an industrial to a sustainable and just neighborhood
• Empowering Map Collection Research with Digital Tools
• Digital Twins before Ruins
• Doing feminist and anti-colonial science - art and stories at the kitchen table as intervention
• 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
• Anarchive of time – remembering and imagining before ruins
• From Friction to Cooperation: Rethinking Heterogeneous Positions in Collaborate Experiences
• Urban (hi-)stories in past, present and future: Re-shaping the city, Dortmund edition
• Poetic place-making amidst coal’s multiple afterlives: A laboratory of social dreaming in Recklinghausen Süd
• Reactivating archives: interventions in academic complicity
• Corrosion: The process of becoming-ruin
• Before the Ruins of Speed - The Transrapid as an Abandonment of a Sociotechnical Future
• Ruins and repairs of academic publishing
• Post-Coal Futures in Lusatia: Mobility and Communication Infrastructures as Sites of Structural Transformation
• From industrial ruins to ecological renewal. Developing a toolkit for actionable interventions
• Who and What Tells the Future? Re-storying Deindustrialised Places Across Europe through Everyday Objects
• Artistic approaches to aluminium extraction in the Ruhr Valley
• Toxic Heritage Ruhr
• Sorting Biographies in Ruins and Fragments: Computational Methods as a Promising Approach for STS?
• Leerstand im Stadtbild: Ein altes Apothekenhaus als Kristallationspunkt urbaner (nicht-)Entwicklung