Version 04 September 2023
How to read and engage with this document:
The following pages are a temporary result of an ongoing debate in the stsing e.V. board on a) the visions of the association and b) the board’s strategic activities to enact that vision. More than a set of rules, this vision and strategy document is a living document that is continuously reflected upon and under revision. The shaping of the visions is intertwined with discussion of the current State of STS1 and with the ongoing strategic activities. The function of the visions is to guide the strategies and activities of the association and function as a compass to the board’s work. They also contribute to making the board’s decisions more understandable and debatable for members.
stsing e.V.’s collective visions:
Experimental
stsing e.V. works to support modes of research on knowledge and technology that explore, challenge, test, reflect on and re-configure conceptual and empirical thinking, practices and relations. Experimental modes also include recognition of ambiguous lines of developments and troubles that take rhizomatic shapes rather than aiming for linear progress. The association’s own activities are also subject to experimental engagement.
Collaborative
stsing e.V. supports modes of STS knowledge production and engagements with technology that address contemporary societal concerns about the development, use and consequences of science and technology in society, and whose insights and outcomes are driven by encounters between differences, be they epistemic, ontological or political.
Planetary
stsing e.V. takes the stance of a collective responsibility to avoid planetary harm. In our work as an association, as producers of knowledge and as partakers in academic infrastructures, we ascertain a no-growth strategy, which includes using open software, facilitating hybrid formats to minimize traffic, linking local and translocal acitivities, prioritizing community and quality over size and wealth, avoiding air-travels etc.
International
stsing e.V. fosters knowledge production and technological practices that grow out of exchanges across (epistemic and other) cultures and countries. We do so by employing English as the language of the association, although, we acknowledge that English is itself exclusive and requires additional translations.
Strategic activities of the board of stsing e.V.:
The list of strategic activities serves as a tool to balance to what extend the board engages with the visions and how. No priorities are allotted.
Experimental
- It is the board’s strategy to encourage experimental spaces of encounters between members and non-members, as well as scholars and those from other domains.
- It is the board’s strategy to make non-physical meetings possible and experiment with new formats that intensify collaboration, lower ecological harms, and improve digital experiences.
Collaborative
- It is the board strategy is to organize scholarly activities that encourage collaboration across academia and with non-academic groups. This commits scholars to getting involved with and engaging with their fields, which eschews modes of critique from afar.
- The association is not only interested in its own organizing, but attempts to make an impact on STS, and the world, as well. This includes documenting current dynamics of STS in Germany and offering opportunities for collective reflection and debate.
- Inviting speakers and experts of societal sections within the scope of STS to assemblies and conferences to engage with and learn from contemporary issues and concerns.
Planetary
- The board aims to sustain the envisioned topology of stsing e.V. as an organization responsive to and engaged with current planetary crisis. One activity pertaining to this is to maintain stsing e.V. as an axiomatic network in which impulses from working groups and members are noticed and digested (i.e., aggregated, responded to, connected, etc.)
- The board attempts to govern with care by promoting a participatory and inclusive mode of collaborating and organizing. It keeps the financial profile of the association as low as possible, involves people from various career stages and tries to mobilize members to serve the association’s needs.
- Organizing, collaborating, and communicating is work. Part of the board’s strategic dimensions is to consider the costs and benefits for members to engage in the association and set incentives for participating (monetary, professional, collective, social)
- Another strategic activity enacting the planetary vision is the organisation of hubs and hybrid participation for association events; hubs allow researchers to mingle with each other without a) centralizing the community and b) requiring long-distance travel (also experiment)
Internationalisation
- stsing e.V. membership is open to anyone of any nationality that supports its visions and aims.
- The association is multilingual, with a tendency toward using English.
Authors: The 2021-2023 Board of stsing e.V.: Tanja Bogusz, Matthias Kloft, Laura Kocksch, Stefan Laser, Julie Mewes, Alexander Schniedermann, Estrid Sørensen (in alphabetical order)
1 The State of STS 2022 can be reviewed here: https://chat.spline.de/stsing/pl/u511nuuwnjf9ixouhw4q3rabcc. The State of STS 2023 was ascertained in the form of a panel discussion, video snippets can soon be found here: https://stsing.org/