Technology, Commons, Cosmolocalism, Maintenance, Degrowth

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece

General Description

This elective supports research on how to re-establish how we value, care for, and nurture our collective affairs through the commons – across the production of things, the organisation and coordination of knowledge and skills, the social reproduction of our lives and nature, and our relation to emotions, bodies, time and effort beyond economic production. Given the cross-disciplinarity of these matters, the commons framework brings together diverse perspectives from STS-related theory and practice.

Areas and Directions

On the grounds of a focus on the commons-technology relationship, this elective encourages research on the cosmolocalism approach (combining the global and the local), the study of technological maintenance, repair and reconfiguration of technology-in-use, and the assumption that technological change can only be connected to growth.

Methods and Theories

This elective draws on interdisciplinary approaches from STS, including social construction of technology and infrastructure studies. Theoretical frameworks encompass political ecology, feminist technoscience, and post-colonial STS. Methods include ethnographic studies of commons governance, participatory action research, and comparative case study analysis.