Call for papers for the International Committee for the History of Technology’s 43rd Annual Meeting in Porto, Portugal, 26-30 July 2016
Technology, Innovation, and Sustainability:
Historical and Contemporary Narratives
Deadline for proposals is 8 February 2016
Innovation and sustainability have become key words of our everyday life, extending from political and economic discourse to teaching curricula and from the lay public to academia. However, the use of these terms is often abstract and simplistic, ignoring the density of their interrelationships in different geographic, historical and civilizational contexts, and the boomerang character of today’s world.
The 43rd ICOHTEC meeting aims at addressing this complex relationship by encouraging papers that contribute to a deeper understanding of the multilayer cultural and material built meaning of innovation and sustainability and on the various roles played by technology in enabling or preventing such interplay.
The symposium covers all periods and areas of the globe. We invite submissions of new, original and unpublished work that offers fresh perspectives for the history of technology as well as exploring sources and methods.
The main theme embraces the concepts of technology, innovation and sustainability as organizing principles, thus perceiving them as actors in the building of today’s globalized society. The programme committee suggests the following non-exhaustive sub-themesfor the consideration of session organisers and contributors of individual papers, and posters:
● Routes of innovation: the changing relationship between centres and peripheries (north-south; west-east)
● Readdressing technology’s conceptual topics: from diffusionism to appropriation
● Innovating in imperial settings: western dominance, indigenous agency and go-betweens
● Rethinking global technology governance: how to make innovation work for society
● Technology, nature and power: postcolonial perspectives on innovation
● Food, environment and agriculture: industrial and cultural approaches to sustainability
● Innovation and sustainability patterns in Europe and elsewhere
● Identities in the face of innovations and environmental crises
● Linking the territory; mobility patterns and environmental choices
● "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse": balancing urban and rural territories
● From grey to green: sustainable energy
● Inventing new consumers: innovation, sustainability and consumption
● The Big Brother syndrome: privacy in open societies
● The Grey Goo syndrome: risk and ethical choices in nuclear, biomedical, and nano technologies
● The changing historiography of innovation
● Sustainable narratives of crises: articulating disasters and challenges
● Green home in green city: sustainable architecture and urban planning
● Re-inventing health in globalized world
● Displaying the past or teaching the future? In quest for sustainable museum of technology
More information here: www.icohtec.org/annual-meeting-2016.html.