Abstract
The paper narrates an Austrian research program in the area of transdisciplinary sustainability research , which strongly inscribes into the promise that bringing together the knowledge and expertise of various (scientific and extra-scientific) actors provides a chance to get a handle on complex societal problems—such as climate change . Starting from the observation that the majority of funded projects makes use of computer modeling and simulation to bring together the knowledge of scientific and extra-scientific actors, the paper aims to understand computer simulation and modeling as “integration machines .” Inspired by the way they are presented in the projects themselves in a first place, the notion of the integration machine points to the dynamics of attempts to involve a variety of scientific and extra-scientific actors and the epistemic practice s held appropriate to do so. Based on the analysis of the ways how computer simulations and models are discursively designed in different arenas of discussion, development and dissemination (e.g., proposals, publications, interviews, focus groups, project meetings), the paper carves out how “integration machines ” incorporate imaginations, hopes and promises, and how they translate between a multiplicity of ascribed attributions. Crucially, the paper attends to different “performative” dimensions of integration machines , showing how they include but also exclude certain kinds of knowledge, how they assume a distinct distribution of responsibilities, and how they (re)produce orders, roles, and identities within the relation between science and society.
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Notes
- 1.
See section “Materials and Methods.”
- 2.
See also the section “Materials and Methods.”
- 3.
Sismondo has defined “[s]imple models and complex simulations […as] endpoints of a continuum. […] Complex computer simulations can be said to use models of many types” (Sismondo 1999, p. 253).
- 4.
The project website (www.provision-research.at) is no longer online but still can partly be accessed via WayBackMachine: http://web.archive.org/web/20131212181724/http://www.provision-research.at/ (Accessed 18 May 2015).
- 5.
The project was carried out by Ulrike Felt (project lead), Andrea Schikowitz, Thomas Völker, Dorothea Born, and me. See http://sciencestudies.univie.ac.at/forschung/abgeschlossene-projekte/transdisciplinarity-as-culture-and-practice/ (Accessed 5 Sep 2014).
- 6.
For reasons of anonymization, I will refer to interview numbers and the line in which the interviewee expressed a sentence or phrase (e.g., “interview scientists 1, 345”). In cases I quote from proposals, reports, publications, protocols, etc. of one of the investigated projects, I will tag that as, e.g., “proposal project x”, or “publication project y”. The interview quotes are originally in German. I translated all the quotes into English, the same holds for some of the quotes taken from other materials, such as proposals, presentations at homepages, etc. Different kinds of models and simulations can be found in the investigated transdisciplinary research project. For sure, certain arguments, ways of legitimization and description will hold for one kind of modeling and simulating more than for another. Basically, however, my results echo characteristics and dimensions that hold for all computer simulations and models and represent the dominating ways of arguing and reasoning for their deployment in transdisciplinary sustainability research .
- 7.
Original German text: “In proVISION steht Transdisziplinarität für jene wissenschaftliche Arbeit, in der außerwissenschaftliche Partner, Partnerinnen an der Entstehung des Wissens mitwirken” (Begusch-Pfefferkorn 2005, p. 5).
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Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research for funding the research project “Transdisciplinarity as Culture and Practice.” I moreover want to thank all the interviewees for sharing their views on transdisciplinary knowledge production and providing insights into transdisciplinary work practices. Special thanks go to Ulrike Felt, Maja Horst, Stephen Hilgartner, Katrin Igelsböck, Christoph Musik, Andrea Schikowitz, Judith Simon, and Thomas Völker (in alphabetical order), and, last but not least, to the editors of the book for providing invaluable feedback to previous versions of the paper.
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Igelsböck, J. (2016). Designing “Integration Machines”. In: Krings, BJ., Rodríguez, H., Schleisiek, A. (eds) Scientific Knowledge and the Transgression of Boundaries. Technikzukünfte, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft / Futures of Technology, Science and Society. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-14449-4_6
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