Showing papers in "Behemoth : a Journal on Civilisation in 2020"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adopt the vision assessment approach of technology assessment (TA), and substantiate and suggest modifications of its analytical perspective to make it suitable for analysing interactions between multiple visions as formative elements in societal transformations on the one hand and as political-economic resources and capacities on the other.
Abstract: Clashes between visions of the future politicize the future of urgent societal transformations. In the political economy, visions and their promises become resources and their implementation turns into capacities that serve to increase value. Our paper argues that visions as political-economic means influence the transformation processes responding to grand challenges, guide them in certain directions, promote or even hinder them. To shed light on this correlation, we adopt the vision assessment approach of technology assessment (TA), and substantiate and suggest modifications of its analytical perspective to make it suitable for analysing interactions between multiple visions as formative elements in societal transformations on the one hand and as political-economic resources and capacities on the other. Our hypothesis is that the relationship between visions, political economies and transformation can only be examined by looking at power constellations that change through clashes and interactions of multiple and competing visionary practices.
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a new socio-eco-technological transformation towards sustainable development, which takes into account ecological boundaries, but there is no consensus on the direction of the upcoming socio-ecological-technologies transformation.
Abstract: Two key issues are currently dominating the discourse on the future: On the one hand, technological and especially digital transformation, on the other hand the socioecological transformation towards sustainable development, which takes into account ecological boundaries. Both topics are becoming increasingly linked, but there is no consensus on the direction of the upcoming socio-eco-technological transformation. As stated in the article, the controversies and the different concepts are influenced by the utopian traditions of modernity. In particular, the technical utopia ‘Nova Atlantis’ by Bacon, and the paradigmatic social utopia ‘Utopia’ by More are crucial. The hegemonic technology-oriented sustainability concepts are in the tradition of Bacon. Since they continue modern expansionism, they are inadequate to solve the ecological crisis. Approaches in the tradition of social utopia may be more likely to solve the crisis, as they include more comprehensive socio-eco-technical imaginaries of a sustainable future.
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the political function of state-sponsored proclamations of future technological developments with regard to the German example of "Industrie 4.0" and demonstrate how critical social sciences could contribute to open the discourse from a mere techno-managerial towards a techno-political utopia.
Abstract: This article examines the political function of state-sponsored proclamations of future technological developments with regard to the German example of ‘Industrie 4.0’. Building on a comparison of two classical texts of the literary genre of utopianism, Bacon’s Nova Atlantis and Morus’ Utopia, the article argues that the future visions of ‘Industrie 4.0’ can be understood as a techno-political utopia. As such, it is a discursive strategy consisting of three elements: social mobilization for national competitiveness (nationalism) towards a profitable industry with “men at the center” (solutionism) and without industrial conflicts (corporatism). These elements limit an open political discussion on desirable digital futures. The article concludes by demonstrating how critical social sciences could contribute to open the discourse from a mere techno-managerial towards a techno-political utopia.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the practical deproblematisation as a real possibility of future dealings with digital technologies and, against this background, pleads for a theoretical problematisation of this de-problematization, which takes into account the possibility of posthuman social orders.
Abstract: In the socio-theoretical discourse on digitisation there is, among others, a strong sceptical and explicitly critical perspective towards socio-technical developments. The focus of this scepticism is the autonomous subject as the normative guiding value of modern society, which seems to be at stake due to the progress of digitisation processes. Accordingly, there seems to be a broad consensus that these developments will be problematic. However, it is also a possibility that they may not be problematized in social practice. This is hardly taken into account by contemporary social theories. In our contribution we would therefore like to plead for a problematisation of this practical de-problematisation. The de-problematisation of human autonomy is not only a possible vision of the future, but, as an already present undoing of autonomy, an empirical object that calls for a theoretical exploration that is not limited to a mere diagnosis of a problem in need of correction. Instead of theoretically assuming that the acting subjects must be interested in their autonomy, our contribution discusses the practical deproblematisation as a real possibility of future dealings with digital technologies and, against this background, pleads for a theoretical problematisation of this de-problematisation, which takes into account the possibility of posthuman social orders.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a universalist narrative of globally shared vulnerability to infectious disease threats drives Global Health Security as a global governance programme, and it is shown how this narrative securitizes existing vulnerabilities in health infrastructures.
Abstract: Through qualitative analysis of materials from ethnographic observations and governance documents, and along an analytic framework of infrastructure, this paper examines the ambivalences of care in and of Global Health Security. Global Health Security’s occupation with preparing health systems for an appropriate emergency response is accompanied by the problem of allocating responsibility for this preparedness capacity buildup. The paper argues that a universalist narrative of globally shared vulnerability to infectious disease threats drives Global Health Security as a global governance programme. It is shown how this narrative securitizes existing vulnerabilities in health infrastructures and how Global Health Security thereby functions as a reflexivization of former infrastructural adjustment programmes, which co-constituted these vulnerabilites in the first place. Against the backdrop of the problematic emergency response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the concept of response-ability – developed in neo-materialist and posthumanist feminism – helps to contour the ambivalences of Global Health Security’s care. While certain infrastructural vulnerabilities and provisional needs are being addressed, the caring security employed in Global Health fails to respond to other, obvious infrastructural vulnerabilities.
3 citations
1 citations