Dr. Brice Laurent will be giving a lecture on 13th February, 2025 on occasion of his visit to the TIK Center. The lecture is part of TIK's master course in STS titled 'How can we meet the increasing contestation against climate and environmental expertise – if not against democracy itself?'
The talk will discuss recent crisis diagnostics related to expertise and democracy, and how STS can provide productive answers along two different paths: 1) studying and acting on the politics of boundary-work, and 2) studying and acting on the materiality of issues and infrastructures. Together, this allows us to address expertise as a constitutional problem, which is one way – perhaps the only one – to think about and act on current threats to democratic politics about climate and the environment.
The talk will draw on examples from recent work on the use of “socioeconomic analysis” in health and environmental risk assessment, as well as on energy transition and natural resources. It will also build on two recently published papers, which can be read as preparation for the talk:
- Laurent, B. (2025) Can democracy save children’s lives? Addressing the constitutional problem of expertise. Social Studies of Science.
- Laurent, B. (2024) Latour and the question of politics: A constitutional reading. Theory, Culture & Society.