>
>
> Staying with Speculation: Natures, Futures, Politics Knowledge Exchange
> Symposium 13 & 14th June 2018, Lancaster University
>
> In the past decade, speculation has become an increasingly widespread
> concept in disciplines across the sciences, arts and humanities. Its
> applications are as diverse as designing urban futures, studying
geological
> phenomena and imagining future participatory politics. That speculative
> methods and practices often place importance on unpredictability would
seem
> to make the approach unattractive to planning and design. However,
> speculation is increasingly deployed in shaping environments, policies,
> cultures and products in direct ways. As a consequence, there is growing
> interest in disparate, but often overlapping, conceptual, theoretical and
> practical elements of speculative research methods. As this
> cross-disciplinary pool of research about speculation grows, questions
> emerge about its potential, as well as its concrete ramifications.
>
> Staying with Speculation calls for researchers and practitioners from any
> field, in which speculation is an operative concept, tool, method or other
> element of research practice. This will be the inauguration of SpecHub, a
> research group housed in the Institute for Social Futures, Lancaster. The
> symposium will allow sharing of experiences and uses of speculation, as
well
> as a writing retreat to build and plan collaborations. The output of this
> will be a special issue of Global Discourse Journal.
>
> The aim is to examine the implications and applications of the approach in
> terms of dealing with core ethical, methodological and practical issues
that
> we face in an era of volatile unpredictability. This is essential since,
> although there is discussions of speculation in design, sociological and
> philosophical literatures, exchange between researchers and practitioners
is
> still quite rare ? a phenomenon demonstrated by the lack of a coherent,
shared
> vocabulary of and on the approach.
>
> Issues examined:
>
> *
>
> The ethical and political questions regarding the deployment of
> speculation both within and beyond academic contexts
>
> *
>
> The implication of speculation on disciplinary boundaries
>
> *
>
> On whose behalf does research practices speculate? In what ways can
> speculation be both an inclusive and exclusionary practice?
>
> *
>
> The potential for speculative practices to address global challenges
> such as climate change, urban futures and political practices in the
> wake of Brexit
>
>
> Please send expressions of interest with a brief summary of your research
> to Luke Moffat: [log in to unmask] by 1st May 2018.
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