workshop 2012

Expected Papers

• Ignacio Farias1
• Paula Ungar and Roger Strand2
• Isabelle Mauz3
• Israel Rodriguez Giralt4
• Uli Beisel5

Introductory considerations

Managing Objects

In the first part of this theme we endorse how objects are generated in scholarly and managerial interaction and how they are subsequently managed.

The “object” part of "managing objects"

Key questions here: What are the objects of environmental management? How are environmental entities construed as objects in practice as well as theory?

• 1. Farias, Ignacio. "Re-cognizing Tsunamis: The Cosmopolitics of Tsunami Warning Systems (and Failures)." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 2. Ungar, Paula, and Roger Strand. "Protected Area Management and Pertinent Knowledge: What does Management Mean and Which Knowledge is Pertinent? A case study in the Colombian Amazon." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 3. Mauz, Isabelle. "Wildlife management in practice. The case of the preys-predator programme in the Mercantour national park." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 4. Giralt, Israel Rodriguez. "Unpacking nonhuman environments: the role of migratory birds in Donana's Environmental Disaster." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 5. Beisel, Ulrike. "Assembling mosquito nets, managing malaria." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.

Expected Structure

• Theme intro by Franz Krause
• Keynote by Ken Olwig
• Paper by David Rojas1 (comment by Andrew)
• Paper by Jukka Nyyssönen2 (comment by Lisiunia)
• Paper by Andrew Whitehouse3 (comment by Jukka)
• Paper by Lisiunia A. Romanienko4 (comment by David)
• 'Spotlight' with Clare Waterton, Ken Olwig and Franz Krause

Introductory considerations

Under the label of ‘performance and imaginaries’ we address a key set of questions for the workshop. Performance is a concept that has been developed to emphasise the particular aspects of the practices that constitute social and ecological forms and processes. Szerszynski et al (2003) summarise that performance suggests practices, often iterative ones that constitute or bring about phenomena that would not exist without this (regular) activity. They continue that this practice always stands in a creative tension with a corresponding script or precedent, which informs that practice, but from which the practice inevitable departs to some extent.

• 1. Rojas, David. "Managing Catastrophe. Carbon Payments and the Aesthetics of Environmental Collapse in the Brazilian Amazon." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 2. Nyyssönen, Jukka. "State of Finland as an agent of sustainability – the consequences of introduction of hegemonic ecologies in Sami domicile." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 3. Whitehouse, Andrew. "Geese and Raptors: legitimate and illegitimate killing in the Scottish countryside." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 4. Romanienko, Lisiunia A.. "Berries, Bombs, and Bodies: Multiple Modes of Managed Militancy in the Anarcho-Primitivist Case of the Unabomber." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.

The workshop is structured into three themes:

• Workshop 2012's theme I (Performance and Imaginaries)
  • coordinated by Franz Martin Krause
  • Keynote by Kenneth Olwig
  • Discussant Claire Waterton
• Workshop 2012's theme II (Managing Objects, Enacting Assemblages)
  • coordinated by Anup Sam Ninan, Hannah Strauss, Niklas Hartmann
  • Keynote by Kristin Asdal
  • Discussant Werner Krauss

• coordinated by Ingmar Lippert
• Keynote by Lucy Suchman
• Discussant Isabelle Mauz

Expected Papers

• Jürgen Hauber1; commented by Anonymous Practitioner
• Silvia Bruzzone2; commented by Liana Müller
• Liana Müller3; commented by Silvia Bruzzone
• Anonymous Practitioner and Ingmar Lippert4; commented by Jürgen Hauber

Introductory considerations

In the received view, environmental management presupposes plans and ideas: management has objectives, such as reaching a specific point or reaching a dynamic trajectory around a certain state. Two examples should suffer: the former might be the re-introduction of a specific species; or an example for the kind of target might be ensuring a specified continuing yield of resources. In response, critics conceptualise a rationality, mostly imagined as a singular but multi-backgrounded phenomenon - such as The Western, Capitalist and/or Masculine rationality of Rational Control5/6 (and opposed to an Ecological Rationality7/8) - which is heralded by hegemonic players.

• 1. Hauber, Jürgen. "The practical performance of coordination: The case of bioenergy value chains." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 2. Bruzzone, Silvia. "Environmental management: between zooming in and out." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 3. Müller, Liana. "The Legal Dwelling: Taming the law in the construction sector in Norway." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 4. Lippert, Ingmar, and Anonymous. "A dialogue about `diffuse requirements' on an environmental manager's task to report about technical and environmental safety." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
• 5. Banerjee, S. B.. "Who Sustains Whose Development? Sustainable Development and the Reinvention of Nature." Organization Studies 24 (2003): 143-180.
• 6. Bäckstrand, Karin. "Scientisation vs. Civic Expertise in Environmental Governance: Eco-feminist, Eco-modern and Post-modern Responses." Environmental Politics 13 (2004): 695-714.
• 7. Clark, Brett, and Richard York. "Carbon metabolism: Global capitalism, climate change, and the biospheric rift." Theory and Society 34 (2005): 391-428.
• 8. Mol, Arthur P. J.. "Environment and Modernity in Transitional China: Frontiers of Ecological Modernization." Development and Change 37 (2006): 29-56.

Programme

• Programme of workshop
• List of keynotes

Preparing for the workshop's discussions

Building a common ground

During this workshop we aim to draw together discussions on the papers by way of (probably) three time slots in which we use as a common ground these papers:

1. session on: Ecological modernisation & sustainability: Mol on ecological modernisation and environmental sociologies1 vs Blühdorn on unsustainability2

2. session on: heterogeneous engineering: we use Law's "the manager and his power"3, and Ingold's "The textility of making"4 as a secondary reading.

3. session on: situated knowledges: Haraway's situated knowledge5, and as background reading an encyclopaedia article.

In order to utilise these texts as common reference points during the workshop, we like to suggest that you consider having a look at this indicative set of readings listed above.

• 1. Mol, Arthur P. J.. "Social Theories of Environmental Reform: Towards a Third Generation." In Environmental Sociology: European Perspectives and Interdisciplinary Challenges, edited by M. Gross and Harald Heinrichs, 19-38. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer Verlag, 2010.
• 2. Blühdorn, Ingolfur, and Ian Welsh. "Eco-politics beyond the Paradigm of Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda." Environmental Politics 16 (2007): 185-205.
• 3. Law, John. The Manager and His Powers. Vol. 2011. Lancaster University (Department of Sociology), 1997.
• 4. Ingold, Tim. "The textility of making." Cambridge Journal of Economics (2010).
• 5. Haraway, Donna. "Situated Knowledges: the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective." Feminist Studies 14 (1988): 575-599.

In 2012, we discuss the topic "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", as the Call for Papers coined it, together with twenty scholars. A preparatory session for this workshop has been held in 2011 at the 10th IAS-STS conference at Graz, Austria. For this workshop, we are glad to receive support from Bielefeld University's Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) and Volkswagen Foundation.

At the 10th Annual IAS-STS Conference Critical Issues in Science and Technology Studies (May 2-3, 2011 at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society - Graz, Austria) we have brought together several researchers to discuss the study of situated practices of managing environments: For that we have designed a session in which Ingmar Lippert, Silvia Bruzzone, Franz Krause, Anna Schreuer and Gerald Aiken contributed analytically and empirically to the topic.

Interdisciplinary workshop 29 May to 2 June 2012, Germany (Bielefeld University: Center for Interdisciplinary Research).

Organisational Updates

• Call for Papers: closed
• General workshop website
• Timeline
• Frequently asked questions
• Programme of workshop
• List of keynotes

Call for Papers

People manage their environments, all of us in everyday life, and some more specifically as professionals. Many of the decisions we take and activities we practice, both in everyday life and in professional roles, have multiple and heterogeneous consequences for our environments. Yet, often a particular set of practices is delineated as environmental management and assumed to contribute to "sustainability". In this workshop, however, we will discuss environmental management as a practice, as a situated unfolding of social relationships, desires, routines, and materials. Thereby, we aim to gain insight into some of the processes by which sustainability and unsustainability are being produced (Blühdorn and Welsh 20071).

• 1. Blühdorn, Ingolfur, and Ian Welsh. "Eco-politics beyond the Paradigm of Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda." Environmental Politics 16 (2007): 185-205.