Economic Exchanges
17-18 September 2015, Goldsmiths, London
Approximately 50 participants gathered at Goldsmiths, University of London for the ‘Economic Exchanges’ event. We had posed the question ‘what happens when Science and Technology Studies (STS) meets the economic’, but as with all the best events questions were quickly raised regarding what was meant by economic (with a huge range of potential candidates from trading to valuing, capitalization to cookery) and what was the proper pursuit of STS (to build on or challenge other areas of economic thinking, to pursue provocative questions of the scientific and technological in new realms, to dissect economic assemblages and explore the devices and practices that hold them together, to invent or experiment with the economic).
Day 1
Noortje Marres opened the event with a warning not to get too quickly seduced by market framings, or to consider that the term ‘market’ settles matters under consideration. Drawing on her work in developing new digital methods, she invited us to explore the porous divide between ‘promotion’ and ‘issue formation’ or ‘problematization’ which might be handled through ‘formatting ambiguity’. Across 4 to 5 decades, Noortje proposed, STS has engaged in a continual questioning of the boundaries between what counts as the scientific, technological and economic (among other areas) and this sensibility ought to be retained. This kind of boundary crossing was exemplified in the presentation of Pascale Trompette and Céline Cholez who attended to practical and epistemological transformations occurring along transnational trade routes. Following car batteries from French scrapyards to local recharging economies in Madagascar, they pointed to the ‘ordinary fabric of market agencements’ and described the infrastructure and relationships that allow the circulation-transformation of goods. Perhaps this suggests STS itself could pay attention to its own circulations. Sveta Milyaeva then focused on tensions central to interventions that are both regulatory and economic in character, noting the difficulties she found in her study of attempts to reconcile data markets and data protection. What became at stake in the development of the new EU Data Protection Directive, according to Sveta, was a selective hybrid assembling of things and people that would get to count in a legislatively proposed future. In this way, STS engagements with the economic might be both an engagement with circulation but also with tensions. Daniel Neyland then proposed stepping outside the tradition of STS empirical studies of experiments by instead conducting experiments. In his case he suggested an experiment with price offered an opportunity to reconsider the position of the experiment in STS, not restricted to an empirical site, but also open to participatory provocations. This first set of presentations indicated that engaging with the economic seemed to provide an opportunity for considering warnings, circulations, tensions and provocations.
Our first keynote exchange continued this diverse discussion. It featured Sheila Jasanoff and Fabian Muniesa. The idea for these exchanges was to allow the speakers to present their own work, but also respond to the other participant in the exchange. Sheila presented a comparative narrative of controversies that draw together legal, scientific and economic issues in parenthood and carbon emissions. Based on a careful analysis of US court cases, the question was posed of how action was distributed (for example, under what conditions is it for science or law to act?), how authority was claimed and how equivalences were constituted (with recognisable distinctions ‘all the way down’). Sheila suggested revisiting a notion of marketisation through multi-layered normative stances. Fabian then examined ‘capitalization’ and the figures of the investor and the entrepreneur. In particular, he focused on the transformation of data into capital, looking at a start-up in genetic identification. Here the question became how do people and things come to express value? On the one hand Sheila raised questions of the means through which the normative and the ontological might participate in deciding the nature of things, whilst on the other hand Fabian sought to provide an STS route into describing particular constitutions as valuation, capitalization and even asset-ification.
Day 2
At the start of the second day of the event, José Ossandón, along with colleagues Trine Pallesen and Christian Frankel, compared markets for collective concerns with other forms of economic arrangement studied across distinct academic disciplines. The suggestion here was that STS was only one of several disciplines seeking to make sense of the economic. José’s conclusion pointed to the similarities and distinctions between the political, practical and bureaucratic organization of markets for collective concerns. However, for something to be recognised as a collective concern was not to be treated as given. The following presentation by Liliana Doganova and Brice Laurent (presenting work produced with their colleague Julien Merlin) then pursued questions of the collective in a different manner. They described the distribution of property rights in the New Caledonian extractive industry. The case indicated how STS could enable a profound rethinking of objects, forms of property and ownership. In particular, Liliana and Brice proposed paying attention to political concerns such as sovereignty in how new things, here nickel mines, come to be valued. Tensions between the new and the old then featured in Véra Ehrenstein’s presentation of global vaccine markets and their shaping through legal interventions and public aid money. She detailed the set-up of an innovative procurement mechanism allowing developing countries to access a not so innovative vaccine. In this case, she suggested, legal issues are less focused on intellectual property rights or licensing, as they are on contracts aimed at fixing in place relationships, assigning responsibilities and durably entangling market actors (such as the pharmaceutical industry and aid agencies). Taking policy interventions in a different direction, Joe Deville then provided an analysis of behavioural economics, ‘economisers’, and nudging, narrating a history of devices through which nudges might be made. Joe argued that STS could provide a distinct take on what happens in encounters between (nudge) devices and individuals. In this way, STS engagements with the economic could be presented in contrast to other academic disciplines, as a means to engage with the production of new and old concerns and as a means to rethink emerging policy formations.
Our second keynote exchange involved Franck Cochoy and Vincent Lépinay. Franck suggested that recent work on the economic seemed to be moving STS away from its traditional focus on ‘small’ objects carefully examined towards larger scale phenomenon such as markets. However, Franck advocated a move back towards the stuff that STS has historically researched – and in this talk focused on skis. He suggested that explanations for the simultaneous emergence of multiple instances of the ‘same’ innovation have often been explained through models of contagion (with one thing causing another) whereas he thought it useful to think more about diffusion (with similar things emerging in different places) and intelligent design (which, although inept in theology, might be more useful for studies of innovation). Franck suggested that the innovator is also necessarily a buyer, turning suppliers into ‘co-innovators’. He also showed that the key to the success of the Head aluminium ski was not competition to kill off opponents but co-opetition; a form of selective association through which links and collaborations work alongside competition to forge new entities. Vincent responded by exploring the notion of collection at the centre of co-opetition. Here Vincent argued that the precise mode of collection at stake in co-opetition was not merely a list. Indeed he looked to point up a distinction between production (that which contains a Schumpeter-ian creative destruction that results in a combination of entities that is irreversible, as with haute cuisine) and derivation (that which involves a more literal sense of combination through the listing of entities and as a form of collection offers some opportunities for reversibility, as in nouvelle cuisine). The literal, Vincent suggested, provides us with the basis for rendering otherwise opaque matters to some degree transparent and forces us to socialise with them differently.
On irreconciliation and the emergence of new things
Looking across the event, it seems that several themes emerged through the presentations and discussions; there were also some notable absences. First, there was a demand for irreconciliation, that we should not settle or allow things to settle. The sceptical STS sensibility for continual provocation retained its importance in eschewing seductive market framings, and instead pursuing difference all the way down (between markets and alternative economic assemblies, or between economic and non-economic matters) and seeking continually renewed ways to study the accomplishment of things. Second, there was a focus on continual movement. Whether this was directed toward circulation, routes, vaccine delivery or skis. Tied in with this was an associated third theme of location, place or site from which things could emerge (see next theme) or through which such matters as scale and view could be noted. These two related aspects called for an increased attention to the spatiality and temporality of economic exchanges. A fourth theme was focused on the continual emergence of new actors, actions and things, some of which seemed to rely on established mechanisms for their emergence (through contracts, or decision making processes or law) while others were engaged in the creation of their own paths (such as skis). What got to count as old or new seemed to be a local (and possibly reversible) accomplishment.
Alongside these themes were what appeared to be a number of surprising (but not necessarily disappointing) omissions. There was not much mention of performativity, for example, despite its prevalence in discussions relating to STS engagements with the economic. Also, there was not much focus on financial detail, or on economic expertise – perhaps only one equation was presented. This suggests that although STS might be making a more pronounced attempt to analyse the economic in various ways, this engagement is also changing. Also absent was any suggestion that STS was losing out in economic exchanges, that it risks losing its identity. Perhaps this in part paid recognition to the notion that the scientific, technological and economic have always been intertwined in STS work or perhaps it is a practical and pragmatic recognition among sometimes institutionally insecure STS scholars that the economic provides a different means to be useful or valued.
Day 1
Noortje Marres opened the event with a warning not to get too quickly seduced by market framings, or to consider that the term ‘market’ settles matters under consideration. Drawing on her work in developing new digital methods, she invited us to explore the porous divide between ‘promotion’ and ‘issue formation’ or ‘problematization’ which might be handled through ‘formatting ambiguity’. Across 4 to 5 decades, Noortje proposed, STS has engaged in a continual questioning of the boundaries between what counts as the scientific, technological and economic (among other areas) and this sensibility ought to be retained. This kind of boundary crossing was exemplified in the presentation of Pascale Trompette and Céline Cholez who attended to practical and epistemological transformations occurring along transnational trade routes. Following car batteries from French scrapyards to local recharging economies in Madagascar, they pointed to the ‘ordinary fabric of market agencements’ and described the infrastructure and relationships that allow the circulation-transformation of goods. Perhaps this suggests STS itself could pay attention to its own circulations. Sveta Milyaeva then focused on tensions central to interventions that are both regulatory and economic in character, noting the difficulties she found in her study of attempts to reconcile data markets and data protection. What became at stake in the development of the new EU Data Protection Directive, according to Sveta, was a selective hybrid assembling of things and people that would get to count in a legislatively proposed future. In this way, STS engagements with the economic might be both an engagement with circulation but also with tensions. Daniel Neyland then proposed stepping outside the tradition of STS empirical studies of experiments by instead conducting experiments. In his case he suggested an experiment with price offered an opportunity to reconsider the position of the experiment in STS, not restricted to an empirical site, but also open to participatory provocations. This first set of presentations indicated that engaging with the economic seemed to provide an opportunity for considering warnings, circulations, tensions and provocations.
Our first keynote exchange continued this diverse discussion. It featured Sheila Jasanoff and Fabian Muniesa. The idea for these exchanges was to allow the speakers to present their own work, but also respond to the other participant in the exchange. Sheila presented a comparative narrative of controversies that draw together legal, scientific and economic issues in parenthood and carbon emissions. Based on a careful analysis of US court cases, the question was posed of how action was distributed (for example, under what conditions is it for science or law to act?), how authority was claimed and how equivalences were constituted (with recognisable distinctions ‘all the way down’). Sheila suggested revisiting a notion of marketisation through multi-layered normative stances. Fabian then examined ‘capitalization’ and the figures of the investor and the entrepreneur. In particular, he focused on the transformation of data into capital, looking at a start-up in genetic identification. Here the question became how do people and things come to express value? On the one hand Sheila raised questions of the means through which the normative and the ontological might participate in deciding the nature of things, whilst on the other hand Fabian sought to provide an STS route into describing particular constitutions as valuation, capitalization and even asset-ification.
Day 2
At the start of the second day of the event, José Ossandón, along with colleagues Trine Pallesen and Christian Frankel, compared markets for collective concerns with other forms of economic arrangement studied across distinct academic disciplines. The suggestion here was that STS was only one of several disciplines seeking to make sense of the economic. José’s conclusion pointed to the similarities and distinctions between the political, practical and bureaucratic organization of markets for collective concerns. However, for something to be recognised as a collective concern was not to be treated as given. The following presentation by Liliana Doganova and Brice Laurent (presenting work produced with their colleague Julien Merlin) then pursued questions of the collective in a different manner. They described the distribution of property rights in the New Caledonian extractive industry. The case indicated how STS could enable a profound rethinking of objects, forms of property and ownership. In particular, Liliana and Brice proposed paying attention to political concerns such as sovereignty in how new things, here nickel mines, come to be valued. Tensions between the new and the old then featured in Véra Ehrenstein’s presentation of global vaccine markets and their shaping through legal interventions and public aid money. She detailed the set-up of an innovative procurement mechanism allowing developing countries to access a not so innovative vaccine. In this case, she suggested, legal issues are less focused on intellectual property rights or licensing, as they are on contracts aimed at fixing in place relationships, assigning responsibilities and durably entangling market actors (such as the pharmaceutical industry and aid agencies). Taking policy interventions in a different direction, Joe Deville then provided an analysis of behavioural economics, ‘economisers’, and nudging, narrating a history of devices through which nudges might be made. Joe argued that STS could provide a distinct take on what happens in encounters between (nudge) devices and individuals. In this way, STS engagements with the economic could be presented in contrast to other academic disciplines, as a means to engage with the production of new and old concerns and as a means to rethink emerging policy formations.
Our second keynote exchange involved Franck Cochoy and Vincent Lépinay. Franck suggested that recent work on the economic seemed to be moving STS away from its traditional focus on ‘small’ objects carefully examined towards larger scale phenomenon such as markets. However, Franck advocated a move back towards the stuff that STS has historically researched – and in this talk focused on skis. He suggested that explanations for the simultaneous emergence of multiple instances of the ‘same’ innovation have often been explained through models of contagion (with one thing causing another) whereas he thought it useful to think more about diffusion (with similar things emerging in different places) and intelligent design (which, although inept in theology, might be more useful for studies of innovation). Franck suggested that the innovator is also necessarily a buyer, turning suppliers into ‘co-innovators’. He also showed that the key to the success of the Head aluminium ski was not competition to kill off opponents but co-opetition; a form of selective association through which links and collaborations work alongside competition to forge new entities. Vincent responded by exploring the notion of collection at the centre of co-opetition. Here Vincent argued that the precise mode of collection at stake in co-opetition was not merely a list. Indeed he looked to point up a distinction between production (that which contains a Schumpeter-ian creative destruction that results in a combination of entities that is irreversible, as with haute cuisine) and derivation (that which involves a more literal sense of combination through the listing of entities and as a form of collection offers some opportunities for reversibility, as in nouvelle cuisine). The literal, Vincent suggested, provides us with the basis for rendering otherwise opaque matters to some degree transparent and forces us to socialise with them differently.
On irreconciliation and the emergence of new things
Looking across the event, it seems that several themes emerged through the presentations and discussions; there were also some notable absences. First, there was a demand for irreconciliation, that we should not settle or allow things to settle. The sceptical STS sensibility for continual provocation retained its importance in eschewing seductive market framings, and instead pursuing difference all the way down (between markets and alternative economic assemblies, or between economic and non-economic matters) and seeking continually renewed ways to study the accomplishment of things. Second, there was a focus on continual movement. Whether this was directed toward circulation, routes, vaccine delivery or skis. Tied in with this was an associated third theme of location, place or site from which things could emerge (see next theme) or through which such matters as scale and view could be noted. These two related aspects called for an increased attention to the spatiality and temporality of economic exchanges. A fourth theme was focused on the continual emergence of new actors, actions and things, some of which seemed to rely on established mechanisms for their emergence (through contracts, or decision making processes or law) while others were engaged in the creation of their own paths (such as skis). What got to count as old or new seemed to be a local (and possibly reversible) accomplishment.
Alongside these themes were what appeared to be a number of surprising (but not necessarily disappointing) omissions. There was not much mention of performativity, for example, despite its prevalence in discussions relating to STS engagements with the economic. Also, there was not much focus on financial detail, or on economic expertise – perhaps only one equation was presented. This suggests that although STS might be making a more pronounced attempt to analyse the economic in various ways, this engagement is also changing. Also absent was any suggestion that STS was losing out in economic exchanges, that it risks losing its identity. Perhaps this in part paid recognition to the notion that the scientific, technological and economic have always been intertwined in STS work or perhaps it is a practical and pragmatic recognition among sometimes institutionally insecure STS scholars that the economic provides a different means to be useful or valued.
For the programme and abstracts click here
