The contribution shows how the concept of risk has developed in the history of sociology, its relationship to science and technology (S&T), and the current challenges. It argues that the progress of S&T is a double- edged sword that can create risky situations, while also giving the means to frame (and overcome) those situations. As such, scientific and technological progress is at once both the cause and the solution to the problems and threats facing modern society, something that necessitates analyses which critically engage with the implications of their developments. Finally, this was also the thrust of discussions at the meeting of the Section of Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET) of the European Sociological Association (ESA) held in Ljubljana on 11-12 October 2018.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36475997
Informed by concurrent work, which engages in the spread of the #metoo campaign in Sweden, particularly in relation to the concept of silence (Harrison, Sjöstedt-Landén and Olofsson, 2019), this presentation seeks to understand the #jaztudi and #metoo campaign as it spread across Slovenia and Sweden. Previous conversations regarding our respective experiences of the the #jaztudi and #metoo campaign in Sweden and Slovenia constitute the backdrop for the line of argumentation. The #metoo campaign has been a much discussed and debated phenomenon, nationally as well as internationally, however, the concept of silence (Ahmed 2009) allows us to approach this campaign from a slightly different perspective, focusing, not so much on what is said, but that which is not mentioned, who remain and which remains silent and that which is being silenced. Here, silence can also be understood as an oppositional practice.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36428637
This article departs from the concept of environmental citizenship. Focus is on the experiences of representatives for Slovenian municipal waste management companies and business sector service companies engaged in the collection and recycling of electronic waste, and their attempts to increase the amount of separately collected municipal waste. They do so by engaging the Slovenian citizens to undertake separate sorting. Theoretically, the focus is on the processes of negotiating citizen engagement and, more specifically, attempts to incentivise the separate sorting of municipal waste which, it is argued, also helps foster the image of a particular kind of citizen. This article understands the informants' experiences as being intimately linked to, and constitutive of, contemporary waste management discourses where attention is increasingly paid to the activities and behaviours of individual citizens. Noteworthy, while the concept of environmental citizenship can be said to allow citizens to practise sustainability (a concept that is otherwise seemingly quite abstract), the waste management policies of today seem to be increasingly relying on this active citizenship. It is at the intersection of these phenomenon that the negotiation practices of Slovenian waste management authorities happen.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36596317
This paper investigates some ways in which risks concerning electronic waste (e-waste) are done and undone in relation to the concept of circular economy. In doing so, it points to the performative character of risk along with the power relations and subsequent processes of normalisation that underlie these processes of doings and undoings. The findings suggest that e-waste is assumed to pose risk when treated outside the EU, while it is largely understood as a resource when treated within the EU or Western countries. Here, difference is created as e-waste is subjected to spatial transfers, in this case (global) trade.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36476253