[Histport] Chamada até 19/11 para sessão “Activist Epistemics and Artefacts: Facing Science while Making Science” (2026 ESHS/HSS Joint Meeting - Edinburgh, Scotland - 13–16 July 2026 )

["M. Luisa Sousa" <luisacoelhosousa@yahoo.fr>]

CfP “Activist Epistemics and Artefacts: Facing Science while Making Science”

2026 ESHS/HSS Joint Meeting - Edinburgh, Scotland - 13–16 July 2026 

In keeping with the 2026 HSS/ESHS Joint Meeting theme, this symposium invites contributions that explore the plurality of forms of ‘activist science’. It seeks to bring to the fore two intertwined domains. First, how activists, social movements and local communities have become epistemic actors while resisting science, through local and transnational networks. Their political practices have been closely linked to the production, circulation, and appropriation of scientific knowledge. 2) Second, in which ways social protest has been a driving force of sociotechnical innovation: opposition to specific socio-technical projects has often triggered a great deal of ingenuity and innovation.

In particular, the panel will deal with those practices of knowledge production becoming a site of resistance to capital accumulation, technocratic management, imperialism, structural patriarchy, queer-phobia, ableism, and other forms of domination buttressed by scientific and technological policies.

We welcome case studies in which specific communities (grassroots groups, political organisations, self-organised citizens, and others) have constructed scientific knowledge and/or produced technological artefacts as part of, or even central to, their political struggles throughout the long twentieth century: nurses collaborating with clandestine abortion networks, cyclists’ associations assisting urban planers, anti-nuclear activists collecting radiation data, workers’ cooperatives designing artefacts for community building, hackers coding, critical pedagogy movements, indigenous land-defence movements, counter-mapping initiatives... 

To navigate this plurality of political and scientific practices, we also encourage participants to engage in methodological and conceptual questions. How should we think of the so-called ‘activist sciences’, ‘radical sciences’ and ‘technologies of protest’? What is their relationship with professionals and experts? How do we describe the zones of interaction between academics, activists, policymakers, and industrial actors? Finally, we welcome reflections on the relevance of narrating such stories to shape new forms of social engagement from the history of science. 

We look forward to your contribution and will be happy to answer any questions or receive any suggestions. 

Please submit your proposal consisting of a title and an abstract (up to 400 words).  

Deadline for submission: 19 November 2025.

Please send your proposals to: max.bautista@uclouvain.be and laia.iturrizaga@uab.cat
Organizers: Max Bautista-Perpinyà (UCLouvain), Laia Iturrizaga-Zurita (iHC-UAB), Jaume Valentines-Álvarez (iHC-UAB)

The organisers are part of the research project “Exchange Zones of Epistemic Resistance and Alternative Innovation: Activism, Grassroots Movements and Expertise, 1970s-1990s”, and are looking for short- and long-term collaboration on these topics with other projects and scholars.