SS9: Geographies of controversial innovation

SPECIAL SESSIONS

Name and affiliations of the session organisers

Johannes Glückler (Heidelberg University)
Yannick Eckhardt (Heidelberg University)

Description

Human history is ripe with controversies. In science, scholars have looked at theoretical and philosophical controversies as well as at the incommensurability of paradigms and thought styles. Science and Technology Studies, since the 1980s, have looked at controversies surrounding technical innovations, such as nuclear energy or embryonic stem cell research. More recently, researchers have also looked at new business models and services, e.g. Uber (Pelzer et al., 2019), as well as on contestation in artistic innovation (Delacour & Leca, 2017).

Rather than being perceived only as barriers to change, several scholars have emphasized that controversies are either important to ‘fuel change’ (Engelhardt & Caplan, 1987) or even necessary to question established orders of social systems. Hence, controversies may also ‘highlight spaces for innovation’ (Beckert, 2010).

Societal tendencies to create controversy over innovations, to resist their adoption and to reward mainstream ideas are at odds with a world that asks for major sociotechnical and sustainability transitions, and calls for breakthrough technological and social innovations to respond to climate change, retain biodiversity, ease access to the economy, and improve social inclusion and equity. As a consequence, economic geographers have recently proposed exploring the nature and process of controversial, and even illicit (Glückler & Eckhardt, 2022), innovation as well as the geographical characteristics of those spatial pockets that are conducive to overcoming controversy and become centers of innovation diffusion.

This special session invites scholarship to reflect on the relational, institutional and geographical aspects of the social process of innovation in the face of controversy and resistance. We welcome contributions to the above, including on these questions:

Public discourse over technological and social innovation
Current technologies of contestation, e.g. AI, blockchain, cryptocurrency, genetic engineering, geoengineering, fracking
Current social innovations of contestation, e.g. datafication, future wok arrangements, digital education
Controversy in sustainability transitions and resistance to niche innovations
Latest research methods for detecting and mapping controversies around innovation
The role of institutions and institutional hysteresis in innovation adoption
Spatial pockets of innovation: geographical hot and cold spots of promotion and diffusion
Enabling and constraining policies and regulations
Institutional work and entrepreneurship in support or against contested innovation

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References

Beckert J (2010) How do fields change? The interrelations of institutions, networks, and cognition in the dynamics of markets. Organization Studies 31(5), 605–627.

Delacour H, Leca B (2017) The Paradox of Controversial Innovation: Insights From the Rise of Impressionism. Organization Studies 38(5), 597–618.

Engelhardt HT, Caplan AL (eds) (1987) Scientific controversies: case studies in the resolution and closure of disputes in science and technology, Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Glückler J, Eckhardt Y (2022) Illicit innovation and institutional folding: From purity to naturalness in the Bavarian brewing industry. Journal of Economic Geography 22(3), 605–630.

Pelzer P, Frenken K, Boon W (2019) Institutional entrepreneurship in the platform economy: How Uber tried (and failed) to change the Dutch taxi law. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 33, 1–12.

SPECIAL SESSIONS