Contemporary democracy frequently finds itself confronted with highly unstable forms of knowledge around which there exists no clear guide. Controversies rooted in the techno-polical entanglements of science and society seem increasingly resillient to conventional political process and cannot simply be settled by 'the facts'.
How do we handle and engage with complex knowledge controversies? And what new forms of 'democratic equipment' might be of use in that enterprise? The course enables students to make practical use of a series of new web-based research tools and map out complex controversial issues in an easily accesible manner.
Læringsmål:
En studerende, der fuldt ud har opfyldt kursets mål, vil kunne:
Handle situations in which uncertainties are rendered more complex by the intervention of social or natural scientific knowledge.
Identify and interrogate intermediate stages through which scientific or technical knowledge acquires authority.
Apply a range of digital/qualitative research tools such as web crawls or bibliometric surveys to trace out the way in which issues become controversial.
Use dynamic visualisation tools to map controversies in an accessible manner.
Produce a website that enables the wider public to engage with a controversy and interrogate its makeup.
Analyse the interplay between science and politics from a practical perspective.
Provide a democratic instrument to aid the public engagement with science.
Work collaboratively with large ammounts of heterogenous data.
Kursusindhold:
The course involves students in collaborative research projects requiring them to make use of one or more digital methods to map out a controversy of their choosing. The goal is to make it available and explorable by a general public through an online platform like a webpage or a blog.
Students can either bring their own case material from another course or choose one when they start (although this will have to be done from day one).
The course is structured as a combination of introductory lectures, group work and a series of practicums which will introduce the students to new tools and methods while exploring controversies from the hands-on perspective of trying to map them out.
Bemærkninger:
"Mapping Controversies" was first taught by Bruno Latour at the École des Mines in Paris and has been jointly developed as an online programme involving Science Po, MIT, Oxford University, the University of Manchester, the Ècole Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne and the University of Amsterdam. Each of these institutions teaches its own version of the course to a diverse mix of students ranging from environmental and political scientists to architects and engineers.
Mulighed for GRØN DYST deltagelse:
Kontakt underviseren for information om hvorvidt dette kursus giver den studerende mulighed for at lave eller forberede et projekt som kan deltage i DTUs studenterkonference om bæredygtighed, klimateknologi og miljø (GRØN DYST). Se mere på http://www.groendyst.dtu.dk/kursustilmelding.aspx
