10.6092/issn.2038-3460/18911
This editorial by the board of STS Italia (The Italian Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology) introduces a Special Section of the Journal collecting a set of contributions to the IX STS Italia Conference, held in June 2023. The Special Section features an invited Lecture by Huub Dijstelbloem followed by a short commentary by Annalisa Pelizza. In addition, the Section includes the Crossing Boundaries “Drawing Bruno Together” and the Scenario “Bruno Latour and Artificial Intelligence” dedicated to Bruno Latour and both written by long-term colleagues, friends and exegetes of his work.
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2038-3460
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Annalisa Pelizza
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Bruno Latour
Interesting Worlds to Come. Science & Technology Studies Facing More-than-Human Challenges
Text.Serial.Journal
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Introduction
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Annalisa Pelizza
2023
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/18911
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University of Bologna and University of Aarhus
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Bruno Latour
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Interesting Worlds to Come. Science & Technology Studies Facing More-than-Human Challenges
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T/S                                                        INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL SECTION



Interesting Worlds to Come. Science & Technology Studies
Facing More-than-Human Challenges

Simone Arnaldi                       Paolo Giardullo                        Annalisa Pelizza
University of Trieste                University of Padova                   University of Bologna and
                                                                            University of Aarhus

Corresponding author                    Abstract
Paolo Giardullo                         This editorial by the board of STS Italia (The Italian Society for Social Stud-
University of Padova                    ies of Science and Technology) introduces a Special Section of the Journal
Department of Philosophy,               collecting a set of contributions to the IX STS Italia Conference, held in June
Sociology, Education and Applied        2023. The Special Section features an invited Lecture by Huub Dijstelbloem
Psychology, Section of Sociology        followed by a short commentary by Annalisa Pelizza. In addition, the Sec-
Via M. Cesarotti, 10/12, 35123          tion includes the Crossing Boundaries “Drawing Bruno Together” and the
Padova, Italy                           Scenario “Bruno Latour and Artificial Intelligence” dedicated to Bruno Latour
   paolo.giardullo@unipd.it             and both written by long-term colleagues, friends and exegetes of his work.

Submitted: October 20, 2023             Keywords
Accepted: December 20, 2023             STS Italia Conference; interest; more-than-human challenges; Bruno Latour.




1. Introduction
  The IX STS Italia conference was held in Bologna, Italy, on 28-30 June 2023. It gathered
scholars from Science & Technology Studies (STS) and related disciplines in a collaborative intel-




                                                      Figure 1.
                            Conference entrance and registration desk in Bologna.
                        Source: 9th Conference STS Italia photo report by Chiara Dazi.


TECNOSCIENZA. Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies                     © The Author(s) 2023
14(2) pp. 45-49 ISSN 2038-3460                                                    Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
DOI: 10.6092/issn.2038-/13460 8911                                                www.tecnoscienza.net
Arnaldi, Giardullo and Pelizza                                                                 46

lectual endeavour to explore “Interesting Worlds to Come”, as indicated by the conference title.
   These future worlds are interesting to us primarily as humans, holding promises of joys and
challenges that await our engagement. However, the term interesting harbours an inherent
ambiguity, its meaning being contingent upon the perspective of the observer. Recognizing
this ambiguity prompts us to acknowledge that what we find interesting and why it matters
are inextricably linked to the perspectives of those invested in the subject. Acknowledging this
necessitates relinquishing a human-centred viewpoint and embracing a more comprehensive
and diverse perspective as we navigate these impending worlds. The need to adopt this de-cen-
tred viewpoint has been underscored by events of the recent past years, demonstrating how
our current and future challenges engage a myriad of interconnected entities that crucially
extend beyond humanity to include non-human realms.
   The emergence of a new viral life form, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, has im-
pacted various species. Recent outbreaks of conflict serve as reminders not only of the ongoing
global wars but also of the devastation they bring to future generations of living beings and
their environments, demanding extensive resource extraction to sustain them. Droughts and
floods, witnessed in various parts of the world, including near Bologna a few weeks before the
Conference, unveil not only the interdependence of distant regions but also the distinct, con-
text-specific implications of climate change for diverse species, environments, and generations.
   As these future worlds hold significance, they beckon us to take action, seizing opportunities
and addressing challenges. This call to action resonates with a second meaning of the notion
of interest, familiar to us as STS scholars. From this perspective, interest goes beyond mere
awareness and acknowledgment, taking on the dimensions of agency, involvement, and inter-
vention. Nevertheless, if we look at the outcomes of our interventions, history demonstrates
the inadequacy of relying solely on humanity to address challenges that inherently are more-
than-human. Humans, acting alone, struggle to meet the goals set by the IPCC, mitigate ongo-
ing conflicts, and prevent future pandemics. We need help: the very essence of these challenges
necessitates the formation of alliances that extend beyond humanity, alliances that facilitate
enhanced understanding and more impactful intervention.
   Evoking the concept of interest points distinctly to the intellectual lineage of the conference
and this reference in the conference title is indebted to the concept of interessement, which Ac-
tor-Network Theory (ANT) illuminated approximately forty years ago. On one hand, ANT
enlightened us about how both human and non-human entities participate in shaping the
world we inhabit. On the other hand, ANT demonstrated that this world takes form only
when these entities coalesce through processes of translation, involving their continual trans-
formations, negotiations, and adjustments to the conflicting definitions of the issues at hand.
In this context, alliances materialise through the acknowledgment that their alignment around
a question, a piece of knowledge, an infrastructure, or an institution serves the interests of
each involved party and can prove advantageous for all. However, achieving this alignment is
the outcome of a protracted and costly process: interessement entails the active involvement of
concerned parties in promoting specific perspectives on the issue at hand, thereby establishing
devices that exist “in-between” these entities, in a way that is preliminary for the successful
emergence and consolidation of these heterogeneous, more-than-human networks.
   The conference unfolded within this conceptual framework, against the backdrop of the
47                                                                      Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(2)

current manifestations of the numerous geopolitical, health, and environmental challenges
it aimed to explore. Over four hundred participants enlivened the 44 panels of the confer-
ence, delving into the diverse facets of these interesting processes. Discussions spanned from
governance and participation in science and technology to artificial intelligence, from medi-
cal practices to epistemic authorities, and from border studies to energy and environmental
issues. Not to forget the nexus between STS and art. The diverse origins of the participants
contributed to a broader international spectrum of opinions and perspectives, too. While the
majority came from European universities and research institutions, scholars from thirty-six
countries in different continents shared their insights on the global challenges we all face and
discussed the significance and urgency of advancing research and reflection, also directed to-
wards intervention at the governance level.
   The conference program was enriched by three plenary talks and three special thematic ses-
sions. In the plenary talks, Huub Dijstelbloem delved into a specific aspect of climate change
– climate migrations. Noortje Marres explored the public role of scientific expertise in gov-
erning the Covid-19 pandemic, while Paul Edwards discussed the temporal patterns of our
current “techno-metabolism”, focusing on the processes of energy and material resource con-
sumption that drive the future evolution of the Anthropocene. Among the special sessions, a
first one session aimed to support early-career scholars in publishing in high-quality journals.
This was complemented by two thematic sessions: a Roundtable on Taking Time, Shaping
Time: Pacing Urban Climate Transitions, which focused on the temporal dimensions of the
new climatic regime and connected policy interventions at the urban level, and a Roundtable
in memoriam of Bruno Latour, titled Drawing Bruno Together 1.
   This issue of Tecnoscienza showcases some of these contents, featuring Huub Dijstelblo-
em’s insightful lecture and a Crossing Boundaries section based upon the Roundtable titled
Drawing Bruno Together.
   While climate change is widely recognized as a transformative force, Dijstelbloem specifically
examines its role in generating social inequalities in human (im)mobility. He argues that ad-
dressing these consequences non deterministically becomes urgent due to the limited capacity
of traditional institutions, such as the nation-state, to cope with the resulting pressures. Tra-
ditional institutions, designed for a more stable and predictable world that has nearly disap-
peared, struggle to apply strategies like border enforcement to manage the significant demands
of human migration. Current national state apparatuses are ill-equipped to handle the diverse,
more-than-human actors involved in adapting our planet to the reality of climate change. In this
context, Dijstelbloem underscores the strength of STS as a comprehensive body of knowledge
well-suited to tackle issues of mobility and immobility in climate hotspots. Drawing on La-
tour’s Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climate Regime (2018), Dijstelbloem links the overar-
ching threat of the ecological crisis to the new climatic regime. His exploration, woven through-
out the lecture, aims to propose directions for a renewed research agenda on human mobility,
deconstructing elements that contribute to the tensions between mobility and immobility and
challenging traditional perspectives on states, borders, and sovereignty. Ultimately, it fully ac-
knowledges the interplay between humans, mobility and immobility, and the Earth itself.
   The Crossing Boundaries section of the journal draws instead from the Roundtable titled
Drawing Bruno Together organised during the Bologna Conference and from a preceding
Arnaldi, Giardullo and Pelizza                                                             48




                                            Figure 2.
                               Huub Dijstelbloem during his lecture.
                  Source: 9th Conference STS Italia photo report by Chiara Dazi.

panel held during the 4S/ESOCITE conference in Cholula (Mexico) in December 2022. It
gathers reflections and voices from those who collaborated with Latour extensively, those
who had direct interactions with him, and those whose work was profoundly influenced by
his thought. Instead of merely summarising or reporting on these events, the collection is
geared towards delineating an intellectual platform that connects with Latour’s enduring
intellectual legacy. The text opens with Madeleine Akrich sharing memories of her exten-
sive collaboration with Latour. Over two decades, she closely observed the development of
groundbreaking contributions in sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. Following this,
Huub Dijstelbloem delves into Latour’s “magmatic” thinking, highlighting its transform-
ative impact beyond STS. Annalisa Pelizza traces two crucial links in Latour’s intellectual
journey. The first one connects his thought back to his early engagement with the French
semiotic discourse in particular with the “École de Paris” and Greimas’ theory of enunciation.
The second link explores Latour’s connection with technofeminism and Donna Haraway’s
material-semiotics, emphasising a global dialogue emerging in the late 1980s. Finally, Paolo
Landri underscores Latour’s conceptual framework’s transformative potential in education,
emphasising interdisciplinary connections fostered by embracing Latour’s ideas.


Acknowledgments

  As members of the STS Italia Board of Directors, we express our gratitude to the many
STS Italia members and volunteers who helped make the conference a success, particularly
the Scientific Committee (Attila Bruni, Claudio Coletta, Stefano Crabu, Paolo Magaudda,
49                                                                          Tecnoscienza. 2023. 14(2)

Alvise Mattozzi, Federico Neresini, Manuela Perrotta, Assunta Viteritti, Paolo Volonté), the
Local Organizing Committee (Agnese Cretella, Marco Giacomazzi, Francesco Mazzucchelli,
Lorenzo Olivieri, Barbara Saracino, Wouter Van Rossem), and the dedicated students who
volunteered during the three days of the conference (Ahsan Syed, Giusy Grieco, Beatrice
Ferrigno, Alice Fubini, Giulian Melani, Francesco Nasi, Beatrice Superbi, Dominik Tkalcic,
Michele Veneziano, Chiara Vigolo). Our thanks go to the University of Bologna, and especial-
ly the Departments of Philosophy (formerly Department of Philosophy and Communication
Studies), the Department of Political and Social Sciences, and the Centro Polifunzionale Un-
ione for their financial, logistic and organisational support. Scientific support in the design of
the two roundtables was offered by the Infratime Marie Curie Action, and by the Processing
Citizenship ERC project. Finally, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution
of each, single participant to the conference: by convening panels, presenting new ideas, shar-
ing reflections and asking questions, they made the conference the success it was.


Notes

  1 The full conference program and abstracts are available on the conference’s website: https://eventi.
unibo.it/stsitalia2023/.
