Date: 28 September
Time: 09.45 - 11.30

Session program

Introduction
Bettina Hauge, Waste management innovation and its interaction with peoples’ practices regarding discarded mattresses in Denmark.
Amber Nordholm, Niche theory in transition(s): How niche mechanisms play out in a messier, transnational context.
Ellinor Bogen, Negotiating institutional knowledges in the case of land-based salmon farming. 
Bård Torvetjønn Haugland, Thesean innovation: state-facilitated innovation as preservative practice. 
Joint discussion 

Format: 12-minute presentations + 3 minutes for questions. The session closes with a joint discussion on the session’s theme. 

The concept of innovation is strongly associated with the prospect of desirable change – by introducing a new technology or organisational principle, some problematic aspect of society might be ameliorated or even solved. Simultaneously, innovation is ascribed an (perhaps outsized) importance in public policy: whether the goal is to decarbonise transport or make the public sector more efficient, innovation is often claimed to be the answer. As the concept of innovation emerges as the supposed solution to most societal ills, it is crucial to investigate the capacity of innovation to preserve rather than change. Might innovation, despite its connotations of change, contribute to the preservation of long-established sociotechnical systems and/or social orders? The preservation of existing systems under the guise of change may be problematic; hence, it is important to understand how innovation might promote the preservation of harmful orders, as well as the conditions under which meaningful change may be achieved.  

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:  

•  How can we understand the interaction between (possibly comprehensive) ‘local’ changes to a system and negligible change at the system level?  
• In what instances does the rhetoric surrounding innovation promote preservation over change, and how does this rhetoric guide and/or defer present-day political action?  
• How do emerging technologies and their associated expectations play into narratives and practices of preservative innovation?  
• What conditions decide whether (or what parts of) a system changes upon the introduction of an innovation, and, by extension, whether meaningful systemic change might be achieved?  

 The session welcomes both empirical and theoretical contributions, with the hope of facilitating a critical but constructive discussion regarding the role of innovation – both the concept and the practice – in preserving, rather than changing society.   

Organizers

Bård Torvetjønn Haugland, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU

Contact: Bård Torvetjønn Haugland

Lynne Elizabeth Peterson 

Methylmercury in the food chain is a serious global public health concern and is largely mitigable. Coal combustion is responsible for most atmospheric mercury in the food chain. Fish consumption is the primary exposure to methylmercury in humans and the ecosystem, producing dangerous neurotoxic effects. Detrimental ongoing neurological deficits can result from fish eating during pregnancy: methylmercury crosses the blood-brain barrier and may potentially disrupt normal neurodevelopment.

The tension: global coal combustion is on the rise. Mitigation technologies to prevent atmospheric mercury from entering global circulation from coal combustion can reduce emissions by more than 90 %. Policies and regulations are in place, however, the recent decade demonstrated how fragile some of these policies are under various political regimes. This research seeks to understand the phenomenon of the global lack of constancy in response to mitigation potential via the latest technologies available. Instead, regulatory agencies have over-relied on Fish Consumption Advisories when real gains in preventing the risk of mercury in fish could have been attained.

Ontological and epistemological factors will be explored for their role in the parsing of terms that might help address this detrimental, yet solvable problem, through a justice lens. The expected outcome is that governance structures are relying too heavily upon ineffective and unjust FCAs, which in addition to not protecting human health, do nothing to protect the ecosystem.