Over the past decades, in the face of natural hazards, economic collapses, democratic deficits and other forms of daunting setbacks, a prosperous body of literature has emerged to address the precariousness, complexity and plurality of things, beings and their coexistence. Within this literature emerging from Science and Technology Studies, as well as from bordering disciplines, various debates have suggested the fragility of not only the Earth and its ecosystems, but also of large technical systems, forms of life, human bodies and scientific knowledge. Different scholars and researchers have argued that such cataclysms offer us potential pathways to rethink the emergence and composition of heterogeneous worlds, the relations between various ecologies of possibility, so as to reconnect with non-human forms, values, actors and species. Many of them argue for re-imagining the politics of inquiry to develop arts of noticing the “thickness” or “togetherness” of the actual and multiple worlds we inhabit.

Against this backdrop, the overarching conference aim is to reassess the recent contributions of STS and beyond to the study of emerging worlds by gathering scholars from both inside and outside this interdisciplinary field of research. Through different formats (workshops, thematic panels, exhibitions, art performances, round tables etc.), we seek to address how such approaches can have significant impact on the understanding of contemporary issues such as climate change, global health, digitalisation, knowledge politics, open innovation, maintenance and discontinuation, heritage and futurism, migra1on and care practices, among others, by capturing how they participate in reinventing worlds in the making. We welcome all proposals that allow for fruiUul exchanges, experimental collaborations and speculative modes of engagement between academics from various disciplines, but also with and among activists, artists, and anyone concerned.