Laboratories are closed meetings for scholars to develop innovative cross-disciplinary plans, hence they are not open to the public. However, results will be presented during the final session.

TechnoEnvironments describe newly evolving socio-materialities connected to technology in environmental transformations in SEA. TechnoEnvironments are constituted and mediated by material infrastructures, connecting and simultaneously excluding people, things, and ideas. More empirically grounded work is needed in the field of socio-materiality to reveal interlinkages between newly introduced technologies and socio-political realms. We look at how material characteristics of things and technology dictate the particular forms for their conceptualization (Holbraad 2011). According to Latour (2005) we define ‘the social’ as an assembly of human and non-human interactions. We link to Alaimo and Hekman’s (2008) understanding that the non-human realm has signifying force and intersectionality determines human-material connections.

We aim to discuss methods to analyse socio-material imaginaries and practices and to examine the relations that hold them in place and the labours that sustain them (Suchman 2012). We thus need to investigate the specific agential intra-actions determining the boundaries and properties of a phenomena and turn particular embodied concepts meaningful. We are interested in how to research complex socio-material practices to understand ever new relations between the “natural”and the technological, their meanings and imaginaries (Le Cain 2017). Against the background of sustainability discourses, we test transdisciplinary approaches as well as the potential of art-based-research. We warmly welcome short think pieces on
• How do the conceptualizations of TechnoEnvironments travel globally and are implemented locally? Which knowledge is produced by whom, for whom and transferred?
• How does intersectionality play a role in thinking about socio-materialities in respect to class, race and gender for example in defining technology as male and ‘nature’ as female?
• How can a transdisciplinary research approach involve different knowledge producers under semi-authoritarian conditions and for example employ art-based-research? We invite contributions coming from STS (Science and technology studies), sustainability science, environmental anthropology and area studies to contribute to an interactive workshop. Conveners will present the results of these meetings to a larger audience at the end of the conference.