Deadline 9 May: CfC Ecological governance of digitalization and struggles over a public problem - STS-CH 2025 conference, Zurich

[Léo Girard]

Dear colleagues,

This is a kind reminder that the deadline for the call for contributions is this Friday 9 May.

If you're interested in the tensions between sustainability, ecology and digitization, this panel might be of interest to you. 

You will find the call for papers below and attached.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about this call, and feel free to share this email with any groups or mailing lists you think are relevant.

I look forward to discussing these topics with you!

Best regards,

Léo Girard

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Call for Contributions: 

STS-CH Conference 2025 – Zurich, 10-12 September 2025

University of Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich & 

Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

 

Ecological governance of digitalization and struggles over a public problem

Open Panel 

Convenors: Léo Girard (UNIGE) & Prof. Nicolas Baya-Laffite (UNIGE)

Proposals for contributions (<300 words) are welcome until 9 May 2025 (CET)

Please submit here  

 

Digitalization has been widely framed as a solution to the environmental crisis, fostering a political consensus that reconciled digital competitiveness and socio-ecological sustainability. While this framing remains influential, its promises appear increasingly tenuous in the face of mounting ecological concerns. Critics seeking to expose these tensions long struggled to gain traction, often confined to activist or specialized spaces. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and its controversies has unsettled this status quo, revealing a contested field where competing actors seek to redefine the relationship between ecology and digital technologies.

 

This panel welcomes empirical research papers on historical and contemporary struggles over the ecological governance of digitalization, addressing questions such as:

 

- How have political values shaped the governance of digital technologies in relation to environmental concerns?

- Who are the key actors involved, and what strategies and instruments do they deploy?

- How do other political concerns—surveillance, geopolitical asymmetries, energy transitions, socio-economic inequalities—intersect with ecological governance?

- How do these struggles unfold across AI, data centers, submarine cables, teleworking, IoT, blockchain, and other digital infrastructures?

 

We invite analyses engaging with digitalization’s multiple dimensions—virtual and material, service-based and infrastructural—and its ecological contestations, from SDG-linked sustainability discourses to degrowth critiques. Contributions mobilizing STS insights on expertise in public arenas, the politics of infrastructure, and struggles over innovation trajectories are particularly encouraged, shedding light on how science and technology themselves become sites of political contestation.