Conference abstract

 This conference builds on conversations convened at the 2023 conference on ‘Contributing to and with STS’, and explored in reflections that took place afterwards, by thinking with the theory and practice of STS through the lens of ‘territory’, broadly understood. There are multiple possible approaches to thinking through this lens. One involves thinking through STS as a discipline, a territory in the intellectual landscape that imagines and intervenes in the world in particular ways. Another involves thinking through STS from, and about, particular geographical places, and the influences and impacts of our research and praxis might  have on these times-places.  Implicit in both of these approaches is the inevitable question of power, including the ability to define and police boundaries that include and exclude, and to produce and designate legitimate knowledge. These issues take on specific forms and stakes in the Australasian context, rooted in colonial pasts and those of many Indigenous sovereign polities, whose legacies and logics persist with different degrees of vibrancy and recognition today. Imagining and enacting more just and equitable futures depends on engaging with these valences of the exercise of power in the forms of ‘territory’, and reflecting on our commitments and responsibilities from these situated perspectives.

Find a printable, detailed programme here.  

Watch the opening keynote, by Professor Helen Verran, “Australian Territorialisms and their Sovereignties: An STS reading of some contemporary Australian knowledge institutions” below.