Relocating innovation roundtable Relocating innovation text on tracing paper

Relocating Innovation: Places and material practices of future-making

OrkneyLab Futures Workshop
22 September 2009

Why are some places considered centres of innovation, and others as peripheral? How are 'new' things – technologies, industries, communities, political systems - made, and how does that process change from place to place?

This workshop was a forum for discussion and debate on innovation and the future, both generally and in relation to Orkney. It asked how the future is imagined and made on the islands, compared with other places, and how it might be understood differently. [Download the flyer]

OrkneyLab Futures Toolkit

As an effect of this workshop we have created an online collaborative futures toolkit, using the mind-mappng software Prezi.

Download the OrkneyLab Futures Toolkit at the OrkneyFutures webspace.

MIT Workshop 20 May 2009

We welcomed friends and colleagues from MIT, Harvard, Brown, and other institutions in the Boston area to discuss our case studies through reflections on their own work.

Postcards

The workshop was organized as a series of engagements with the materials from this project, in conversation with the research interests of all participants. We developed a series of 35 themed postcards to help connect the case studies with other research interests - and very much welcome further discussion on our blog. [Download the postcards]

Themes

Some indicative questions for the themes we have developed are-

Newness:

How might we investigate the discourses and material practices that make the 'new' (e.g. devices, industries, political arrangements), and its status as a general 'good'?

Centres/peripheries:

What are the histories, presents and future possibilities for shifting relations of centre and periphery in political geographies of innovation?

Place and landscape:

How does location make a difference to the way that 'newness' is made?

(Non)histories:

What are the absent presences of origin stories, and what futures do they make (un)imaginable?

Distributed centered subjects/objects (with thanks to Hélène Mialet):

How can we rethink heroic accounts of the scientist, entrepreneur, politician as a creative genius without doing away with the person?

Roundtable 17 June 2008

Over 20 participants from across social sciences, arts, and management at Lancaster University gathered to consider how to refigure 'innovation' - beginning with a three minute introduction by each person on their work and interests.

Centre for Science Studies podcast logo Listen to podcast of the event

Mailing List

A mailing list for this group interested in 'future-making' has been established. If you would your name to be added, please contact Laura Watts.

This is a research project based at Centre for Science Studies, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT, United Kingdom. Funded by The Leverhulme Trust. Please contact us at relocatinginnovation@sand14.com