[Themaintainers] Talk: A Standpoint Epistemology of Repair? (Cristina Bernabéu-Franch & Jesús Vega-Encabo) Thursday Sept 8 (UTC+1 18-1915)

[mark young]

Dear all,

We’d like to announce the next session of the SPT special interest group on
Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology on Thursday 8th September
(1800-1915 UTC+1).  In this session, we are excited to welcome Cristina
Bernabéu-Franch and Jesús Vega-Encabo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) who
will be exploring the relationship between maintenance and standpoint
epistemology. If you’d like to receive the zoom link for the talk please
email me at mark at markthomasyoung.net. The schedule for the remainder of the
year follows below,

Mark


*A Standpoint Epistemology of Repair?*

Cristina Bernabéu-Franch and Jesús Vega-Encabo (Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid)

Thursday 8th September (1800-1915 UTC+1)

*Abstract:* This paper explores the prospects and limits of a “standpoint
epistemology of repair”. Recent literature in STS has emphasized the
centrality of the activities of repair and maintenance in our
socio-technical environments, so redeeming repair from a certain neglect in
our theoretical reflection on technology and society. We will show that
this turn could just motivate a weak standpoint epistemology of repair.
After introducing the main theses of strong versions of standpoint
epistemologies, we raise some difficulties that affect their application to
repair: the fixer does not constitute a collective that share a set of
interests that can easily ground a claim for epistemic privilege. In the
last section, we suggest how the fixer can nevertheless claim for an
epistemic superiority when they actively engage in the understanding and
transformation of the norms and expectations that govern our life and
material culture. Only if we presuppose that fixer interventions in our
material and artifactual environments require, on the one hand, a certain
knowledge of the world that is not merely functional or technical and, on
the other, a critical horizon of analysis of power-relations, it is
possible to motivate a genuine a standpoint theory of repair.

Maintenance & Philosophy of Technology SIG - Remaining Schedule for 2022:

October 13th 2022         (18-1915 UTC+1)
Taylor Stone (U Bonn) and Aimee Van Wynesberghe (U Bonn) “On the Things of
the Internet: AI for Maintenance and the Maintenance of AI

November 10th 2022     (18-1915 UTC+1)
Sanna Lehtinen (Aalto Univ.) “Aesthetic Values in the Maintenance of Urban
Technologies”

December 8th 2022        (18-1915 UTC+1)
Simon Penny (UCI) "Making Maintenance Possible Again: Finding Ethical and
Sustainable Paths Through Consumerism, Disposability and Inbuilt
Obsolescence"

(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talks - the
following table clarifies when the talks begin in different locations)

Amsterdam 7:00pm
London 6:00pm
Toronto (New York) 1:00pm
San Francisco 10:00am
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