Séminaire du STS Lab – 21/05 – Kathrin Eitel (Université de Zurich)
Loïc Riom
Cher·es collègues,
Vous êtes cordialement invité·es à la prochaine séance du séminaire du STS Lab qui se déroulera le mercredi 21 mai, de 12h15 à 14h00, salle Geopolis 2238 et en ligne.
Chloé Schaer, Annabella Zamora et Loïc Riom
Mercredi 21 mai 2025 - 12h15 à 14h00 - Salle Géopolis, 2238 et en ligne
From Wizards to Forecasts: Speculative Approaches to Flood Prediction and Environmental Knowledge
This presentation explores how technical experts at a Southeast Asian transnational flood and drought forecasting center practice and legitimize expertise through forms of speculation, care, and situated knowledge. In a field often dominated by the rhetoric of algorithmic precision and machine objectivity, these experts approach flood prediction less as a deterministic science and more as a craft—one that resembles the work of wizards interpreting signs from a chaotic world. Faced with incomplete datasets, unreliable infrastructure, and political constraints, meteorologists and hydrologists frequently engage in interpretive work, “filling the gap” between absent or flawed data points. This speculative labor is not viewed as a flaw but as a core aspect of their expertise: the ability to anticipate and act amid uncertainty.
Expertise here is not merely technical mastery but the ability to bridge human and non-human actors within a porous socio-technical infrastructure. It involves maintaining transnational networks, adapting to contextual specificities, and taking ethical responsibility for the dissemination of life-sustaining knowledge. Speculative interpretation, far from being a weakness, becomes a defining feature of flood forecasting expertise. In this light, flood prediction emerges not as the pursuit of perfect foresight, but as a speculative, collaborative practice of crafting actionable futures from within the cracks of imperfect systems.