Entrer en résonance : Vibrations autour d'un monde commun à partir de rencontres entre le 9e art et la science

What if comics allowed us to understand scientific knowledge (production) differently? Some comics, beyond their aesthetic and playful aspects, raise numerous political, ethical and societal questions that directly resonate with social science work. As part of this ‘making and doing activity’, our goal is to address sociotechnical issues, with the help of comic book writers and other artists, and to collectively rebuild spaces for collective reflection on, and engagement in, open-ended technological futures

From safety first towards security first? Security culture and its impacts in high-risk organizations

In the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks in Europe, high-risk industries have dramatically increased their investments in security enhancement. Security technologies such as fences, infra-red security cameras, fingerprints recognition systems and security processes like access control procedure and the “four eyes” principle have emerged, thereby disrupting these industries’ traditional modes of functioning. Whereas these industries originally focused almost entirely on production and safety stakes, they now pay increasing attention to security. Topics such as terrorism, drones attacks, insider threats, cyber criminality gain traction. This research presents results of an examination of the significant increase of security technologies and processes implementation, and their impacts within a nuclear research center. Drawing on qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups and ethnographies), it analyzes (1) the basic assumptions and values that inform these security technologies and processes, and (2) how these technologies and processes participate to shape the organization’s security culture, but also on other cultures (such as safety, innovation or environmental cultures). It mobilizes the idiom of co-production and the concept of technological cultures to comprehend what cultural elements are transcribed within the security technologies and processes. Moreover, such an approach enables us to account for how security, safety and innovation cultures are co-produced by human, technologies and processes as well as how those cultures are mutually constituted. Practically, it permits to get a better grasp on the impacts such processes or technologies might have on security culture as well as on other organization’s cultures

België

Ce workshop avait pour bojectif de faire converser et produire ensembble des travailleur du SCK CEN concernant les enjeux et tensions autour des concepts de safety et securit

Construction d'un cadre d'analyse de crise pour la province de Liège

Ce travail a pour objectif de construire et proposer, sur base d'entretiens avec des acteurs de crise et de participations à des exercices d'urgence, un cadre de retour d'expérience pour la province de Liège

SAFE AND/OR SECURE? DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN HIGH-RISK INDUSTRIES

Our societies are facing an increasing number of crises. These may be rooted in non-intentional or intentional and malevolent acts or a mix of both. In order to prevent and mitigate the threats confronting them, high-risk industries, including defense industries, chemical facilities, energy corporations or nuclear power plants, among others, have developed over time measures to enhance first and foremost their safety, and subsequently, their security. In consequence, safety and security policies have been developed separately and in non-mutually informed ways. Yet, both safety and security have an impact on employees’ daily work and the discrepancies between their aims and practices may increase high-risk industries’ vulnerability. To face these tensions, employees of such organizations, already working in uncertain environments, have to balance and articulate contradictory measures and handle the resulting uncertainties

CO-INVENTING A PARTICIPATORY “RETURN OF EXPERIENCE” DIGITAL PLATFORM FOR POST-CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN BELGIUM

Short abstract In this panel we ask what publics are shaped and enacted by national and transnational surveillance, border and post-crisis management technologies and how can we study them by mobilizing the conceptual and methodological repertoire of STS. Long abstract In Europe, policy decisions dictated by executive powers after 9/11 have enabled new national and transnational surveillance, border and post-crisis management technologies to take shape in the name of controlled migration and preventing and reacting to crime and terror. What publics are shaped and enacted by these technologies and how can we study them by mobilizing the conceptual and methodological repertoire of STS? The modus operandi of pre-emptive security measures builds on decisions calling upon what Gunnarsdóttir and Rommetveit termed "phantom publics" instead of testing such decisions' grounding. How can publics nevertheless engage to hold the management of technologies accountable? An alternative take addresses categories deriving from the social sorting of technologies. Differentiating between trusted and distrusted travelers, low-risk and high-risk groups, documented and undocumented migrants have been regarded as dynamic and contested concepts. Dijstelbloem and Broeders have introduced the notion of "non-publics" to point to heterogeneous publics with ambiguous access to exercise their rights. How can shifted attention from pre-given classifications to ontological modifications of categories provide a perspective on the empowering and disempowering effects on publics? A third perspective focusses on "counter publics". Enacting for instance "subversive mobilities" or "temporary autonomous zones" by destabilizing or subverting routines and scripts of technologies allows actors to claim rights and space that have either not yet been formally granted or cannot be exercised. How can actions with the potential to circumvent borders and surveillance create invigorated possibilities for renegotiating their performative power

Aspects éthiques du risque radiologique

Durant ce cours, j’aimerais avec vous, aborder les question de l’éthique dans le champs de la radioprotection. La volonté n’est certainement pas de donner des réponse toutes faites qui sortes de mon chapeau, mais plutôt de construire, avec vous une réflexion autour des enjeux éthique de la radioprotection ainsi que des enjeux autours d’autre sujets qui pourraient être mis en comparaison avec votre sujet de prédilection, la radioprotection. Au final, j’aimerais qu’on construise ensemble une compréhension de ce qu’est l’éthique et de comment elle s’applique. Le but n’est pas d’aller dans les détail techniques de sa potentielle mise en œuvre, mais bien d’engendrer une réflexion au tour de ce concept le but est donc d’ouvrir des portes, plutôt que de prescrire une chemin, de fermer le champs des possible vers une solution. En effet, en ééthique, il me selmble qu’i est curcial de mettre en avatnq ue les choses sont complexe

Rearticulating Return of experience: Towards a participatory and flexible REX Information Infrastructure for safety and security management

Our technological cultures are increasingly confronted with natural catastrophes, industrial disasters, intentional unlawful acts, or a combination of these elements. Information Infrastructures dedicated to manage post-crisis are key elements to cope with these new risks and the challenges and threats they pose. A system, called REX (for return of experience), aims, in principles, on the one hand at engaging users (crisis actors) through “collective learning processes” and on the other hand, at drawing teachings from previous crises and getting prepared for future ones. Such information infrastructures have been institutionalized and systematized in various high-risk industries (e.g. aviation industry, hospitals, nuclear research) as well as at the national scale for safety and security-related crises in order to increase reflective practices and stimulate a learning process. In Belgium, as elsewhere, several crisis management actors regularly call for the establishment of such an information infrastructure. But how can this system be implemented and “made to work”? Leaning on literature and existing REX examination, we highlight REX potential pitfalls caused by linear, top-down and technocratic approaches. Thereafter, through interviews and emergency exercises participatory observations we analyze the Belgian potential users’ (police, fire and medical services and political/administrative authorities) representations and practices. Based on this, we suggest and discuss an alternative REX model dealing with such pitfalls. The proposed REX builds on a bottom-up, flexible and non-linear approach that rearticulates the relationship between its designers (REX producers) and users (crisis actors) by engaging crisis actors in its production. Thereby, the project aims to produce robust and reflective conclusions and recommendations in order to improve our technological systems’ resilience