Experimentation and Technical Democracy - Theory Retreat

The Authority Research Network has hosted a very successful reading and writing retreat drawing on careful readings of texts by Isabelle Stengers, Gilbert Simondon, and Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes & Yannick Barthes. The retreat focused on themes including: the nature of experimentation and the relationship between experimentation and authority; the role of technical objects, processes and procedures in the production of authority; experimentation and participatory democracy; and authority, experience, and the opening of the commons.

Readings discussed in detail were:

• Stengers, I. (2008) 'A Constructivist Reading of Process and Reality', Theory, Culture & Society, 25(4), pp. 91-110.
• Simondon (2009) 'Technical Mentality', Parrhesia, 7.
• Massumi, B. (2009) "Technical Mentality" Revisited: Brian Massumi on Gilbert Simondon
• Callon et al. (2011) Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy, MIT Press. Chapters 1, 3 & 4.