[Themaintainers] Call for abstracts: (re-scheduled) panel on care, maintenance and energy infrastructures at the Swiss STS Meeting (February 2021)

[Tristan Loloum]

Dear Maintainers,

We are re-scheduling this panel on care, maintenance and energy
infrastructures at the Swiss STS Meeting <https://sts-ch.org/sts-ch-2021/>
(“*Multiple Matters: From neglected things to arts of noticing fragility*”)
which will take place on *15-17 February 2021. *See panel description below.

The organizers plan for an *online or* *hybrid event* (physical meeting +
online attendance).

If some of you would like to join, please send us a short proposal (max 250
words) with names and affiliations by *15 November *(at this address:
tristan.loloum at unil.ch). Thank you!

Take care,

Tristan, Moritz and Alain



Panel description

*Taking care of energy infrastructures*

*Organizers: Tristan Loloum, Moritz Fürst, Alain Bovet (University of
Lausanne)*



The energy transition is often framed in terms of a technological challenge
and an engineering problem, involving innovative design, efficient
planning, and effective optimization of energy infrastructures and the
built environment. This innovation-centric view tends to neglect the fact
that ‘change' often occurs once energy systems are already in place,
through incremental adaptations, additions and enhancements. The focus on
engineers, planners and designers also puts aside the many actors in charge
of operating and maintaining such systems on a daily basis: grid operators,
HVAC technicians, facility managers, installers, caretakers, etc.

Drawing on authors like Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017), Dona Haraway
(2016) and Bruno Latour (2013), we argue that fixing ‘things' and taking
care of energy infrastructure implies more than maintaining their technical
functioning: it means caring for the people who use them and their
environments, and it requires active engagement, social skills and a sense
of concern towards associations between humans and non-humans. The session
therefore extends on current debates in science and technology studies and
energy social science that (I) observe how classical dichotomies (e.g.
between planning and operation, professionals and users, engineers and
technicians, people and machines) are maintained, and sometimes contested
and reconfigured; (II) investigate energy infrastructure and energy
transition at the level of everyday lay and professional care-taking
activities, i.e. considering energy practices as situated and culturally
embedded realities rather than in terms of dominant paradigms of
technological innovation and economic rationality.

This panel session invites contributors from all disciplinary horizons,
looking at energy infrastructure “from below and within”, focusing on
operation routines, control rooms, repair and maintenance, incremental
improvements, “middle actors” (technicians, installers, controllers,
caretakers, facility managers), disruption, practices of daily-use and
socio-technical encounters. We particularly encourage prospective
participants to emphasize the richness of empirical material in their
presentations, exhibit visual and/or audio data, or even material objects
that can form a basis for a fruitful discussion. If appropriate conditions
are in place, the session will be followed up by a quick tour of the
conference venue's infrastructural backstage and/or a meeting with one of
the building's facility managers/maintenance staff in order to get a
concrete grasp of what energy infrastructure is, and what taking care of it
actually entails.
*KEYWORDS*: energy infrastructure, care, operation, repair & maintenance,
energy practices


-- 
Tristan LOLOUM

Université de Lausanne
Institut de géographie et durabilité – Site de Sion
Ch. de l'Institut 18 - Bramois
Case postale 4176 - CH-1950 Sion 4

https://igd.unil.ch/tloloum/
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