Workshop on Heterogeneous Complexity

Workshop on "Heterogeneous Complexity, Representations, and the Ecology of Knowledge," Rensselaer Polytechnic, October 2004.

Links from Peter Taylor's work

"How Can We Help Each Other to Make Knowledge and Social Change within 'Unruly' (Heterogeneous, distributed, ecological) Complexities?" (powerpoint presentation)

Related publications

Taylor, P. J. 2001. Distributed agency within intersecting ecological, social, and scientific processes. In S. Oyama, P. Griffiths and R. Gray, eds., Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution, 313-332. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Summary of Themes and Questions Opened Up in Taylor, P. J. 2005. Unruly Complexity: Ecology, Interpretation, Engagement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Conceptual exploration: An autobiographical narrative also in Taylor, P.J. 2005.
Diagramming of Intersecting Processes (a teaching activity under development)

On making space for critical reflection:

Taylor, P. J. 2002ms. We know more than we are, at first, prepared to acknowledge: Journeying to develop critical thinking.
Taylor, P. J. 2001ms. Generating environmental knowledge and inquiry through workshop processes.
Compilation of KEY TEACHING/LEARNING TOOLS

Colloquium freewriting activity

One thought/question/proposition about influencing people with our STS work

Why does so much of the history of technology tend towards a descriptive rather than a prescriptive stance? (Is this necessary or true?)
While what I [free]wrote seemed to put me the researcher in the position of power to influence other bodies of people, I am not sure how this can happen. I have a feeling that my work may not influence anyone but the academic discourse.
How do we improve our ability in STS, as well as other disciplines, to come into dialog/discussion/negotiations to improve our collective knowledge production?
Expanding 'products' from writing to other kinds of for a - symposia, brown bag lunches, etc. to reach non-academic audiences.
Do STSers tend to have dispositions to serve as models for scientists to reflect and not simply continue along previous lines?
How can we make STS more "interactive" with the subjects/objects it studies? How can the scientists & technologists be included in STS dialogues & how can STSers take a more constructive part in their conversations?
Theorizing is a subversive strategy - and perhaps the most subversive activity.
Analysts (like us) as providers of discursive resources.
Values are the source of all activity and activity is the source of all knowledge, but are values the "endpoint"? What happens when we engage nature in a reflective way as a source of values?