[ecrea] Workshop-Call: “We are on a mission”. Exploring the role of future imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology

Workshop: “We are on a mission”. Exploring the role of future 
imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology

Friday, 27 April 2018 | HIIG | Französische Straße 9 | 10117 Berlin

Keynote: Sally Wyatt (Maastricht University)


“We are on a mission to build a more open, accessible, and fair 
financial future, one piece of software at a time” promises the software 
platform Blockchain. “Imagine if everyone could get around easily and 
safely, without tired, drunk or distracted driving” envisions the 
self-driving car company Waymo (a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, 
Alphabet Inc.). “The Regulation is an essential step to strengthen 
citizens’ fundamental rights in the digital age and facilitate business 
by simplifying rules for companies in the Digital Single Market” claims 
the European Commission with regard to the General Data Protection 
Regulation.

These examples show how imaginaries of future societies are enacted to 
promote digital innovations or legitimate certain modes of internet 
governance. They illustrate how software providers, tech companies and 
legislators dig into the rich pool of cultural norms, visions and values 
to support (or question) digital tools, rules and regulations. Future 
prospects seem to be central for making decisions in the present.


Themes of the Workshop

What role do future imaginaries perform in the making and governing of 
present digital technology? How are they mobilised to push or oppose 
digital innovations such as artificial intelligence, the internet of 
things, blockchain technology or open source/open data projects? How are 
prospective imaginaries shaped in policy discourses and governance 
practices regarding networked technology and global data flows? What 
significance do European specificities have in global technology 
imaginations? Can different mechanisms be identified in mainstream 
discourses and counter-narratives? What happens if future scenarios are 
contested and digital promises become contradictory?

These are central questions to be discussed in our workshop. We welcome 
theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions that help us 
understand how the future is mobilized to make and govern digital 
technology in the present.

The workshop is organized around three central themes:

	• Theories and concepts to analytically grasp future visions and their 
roles in the making and governance of digital technology
	• Methods and tools to analyze the nexus between future imaginations 
and their functions in and impact on policy-making and technology 
development
	• Empirical research and case studies on future imaginaries and their 
roles in the making and governing of present digital technology

Call for Abstracts
Deadline: 02.03.2018

Submission

We welcome theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions from 
various disciplines that speak to the themes of the workshop. Please 
send an English language 300–500 word abstract including a title that 
describes your contribution to the workshop. We encourage you to submit 
work-in-progress.

Abstracts are submitted via e-mail to (astrid.mager /at/ oeaw.ac.at) before 2 
March 2018. We will send out notifications on 13 March 2018.

Organisers

Astrid Mager
Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA), Austrian Academy of Sciences
Elise Richter Fellow, Austrian Science Fund (FWF), project no. V511-G29
(astrid.mager /at/ oeaw.ac.at)

Christian Katzenbach
Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
(katzenbach /at/ hiig.de)


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