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***apologies for cross posting***

*6th STS Italia Conference*

*Sociotechnical Environments*

*University of Trento (Italy) November 24-26, 2016*

*Deadline for abstract submission: May 30, 2016*

*TRACK 9*

*Environmental sustainability, socio-technical transitions and practices*

This track intends to collect contributions focused on everyday practices,
with the aim of deepening the comprehension of the issue of environmental
sustainability.

In the last decades, public debate on environmental sustainability has
increasingly become a general concern and a global challenge. While
governments sign international treaties and agreements, and industries are
engaged in green reconversion efforts, ecologists and environmentalist
organisations argue that a change in current ways of production and
consumption is still necessary.

Social scientists have dealt with environmental sustainability too; an
array of different perspectives, ranging from behavioural theories to urban
planning and macro-economy, has been proposed. In particular, economic
theories as well as Ecological Modernisation approach have often considered
the technological domain as a crucial feature for environmental
sustainability, or as a way to understand and analyses the lack of it.

However, as pointed out by Science and Technology Studies (STS), the
socio-technical transition is the outcome of co-generation processes which
involve several levels widely intertwined between them. Indeed, a
socio-technical change, which may drive to broad transition, is configured
by different elements: on the one hand, daily habits, practices and choices
in behavioural sphere play a central role in sustainability; on the other
hand, non-human actors (e.g. devices, infrastructures) contribute to enable
or limit sustainable practices. These elements represent fruitful
alternative ways to investigate and further develop theoretical reflections
on environmental sustainability as a key issue for social sciences.

Starting from these premises, the track warmly encourages both theoretical
and empirical contributions whose perspectives focus on everyday activities
for/against environmental sustainability. Contributions may be, but not
only, about:

•          mobility strategies in urban and/or rural settings;

•          domestic waste management;

•          energy consumption, including heating systems;

•          relationships between individuals, groups and institutions about
sustainable behaviours (constraining and enabling processes);

•          non-human actors as peculiar perspective for environmental
sustainability.



*Convenors:*

*Paolo Giardullo, University of Padua, paologiardullo [ at ] gmail.com
<http://gmail.com>*

*Sonia Brondi, Sapienza – University of Rome, sonia.brondi [ at ]
uniroma1.it <http://uniroma1.it>*

*Info on the conference and on submission procedures: **6th STS Italia
Conference - Sociotechnical Environments*
<http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/ocs/index.php/STSIC/STE>

*|Please feel free to circulate this announcement widely|*