Despite significant efforts at improving requirements engineering in the development of military systems, defense procurement is still plagued by expensive, well-publicized failures. Central to requirements engineering is the concept of rationality – more reason is assumed to eventually ‘solve’ the problem of defense requirements engineering. This thesis suggests that rationality, instead of being an objective standard, might be part of a socially constructed framework for action. Leaning on Science and Technology Studies for a theoretical framework, it is suggested that rationality and irrationality is part of a larger sociotechnical imaginary which outlines desirable outcomes, actions, and values in military systems development. This thesis presents an interview study of requirements analysts in the Swedish defense sector to outline if and how rationality relates to the narrative of this potential imaginary. The results indicate that a Swedish defense requirements engineering imaginary consists of a rationality/irrationality dichotomy which sets the stage for action in a state of chaos, and that the narrative associated with that imaginary enables the

This thesis departs from the assumption that the current socio-ecological crises require new and alternative imaginaries as well as lifestyle changes. Following a qualitative research method, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with eco-community members and analysed thematically to determine their motivations, values and beliefs, and search for a potential common imaginary. As imaginaries shape behaviours, they also have the potential to motivate change. It is argued in this thesis that eco-community members are actively implementing local transformative change according to their alternative imaginaries. Results show that eco-community members think of imaginaries as primarily personal and that their implementation of change is turned towards the individual and local scale. This thesis explores both theoretical perspectives such as utopias, third places, autonomy and also practices like permaculture and education on sustainable lifestyles. Ultimately, this study shows how hope is rooted in the tangible actions of some citizens who are already working to create desirable futures.

The concept and practice of surveillance has long existed in our society, yet with the development of technology, it has taken on new forms and capabilities. As a result, surveillance technology has become integrated in our society, influencing norms and shaping imaginaries surrounding it. While many existing studies have thoroughly examined people's experiences with surveillance technologies, there has been little attention paid to the efforts of advocacy groups in challenging and reshaping the mainstream imaginaries regarding surveillance technology. Using narrative analysis, this thesis aims to address this gap and explore the sociotechnical imaginaries surrounding facial recognition technology of four advocacy groups: a) Fight for the Future, b) Big Brother Watch, c) Electronic Frontier Foundation, d) Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. This study uncovers that these groups' shared sociotechnical imaginary aligns closely with modern liberal ideals, highlighting the possibility of separating public and private life, the necessity for not only moderate government intervention, but healthy commercial competitions, as well as public education. In other words, I argue that resisting against a particular technology and its associated power dynamics does not always represent a challenge to the fundamental power structure.

In recent years, scholars of science and technology studies (STS) have increasingly turned their attention to the role of collective imagination in shaping sociotechnical futures. This scholarship leaves open the question of how the collectives involved in bringing these futures to life come into being. Starting with one episode in the ongoing conflict over the construction of Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in settler-colonial Canada, this discourse analysis draws on scholarship in feminist, anticolonial, and co-productionist STS to study this process of collective formation in relation to sociotechnical futures. It does so by examining how oil and gas workers become enrolled into a sociotechnical imaginary I call Canadian resource techno-nationalism. Comparing media and politicians’ representations of oil and gas workers with White workers’ representations of themselves indicates that they can end up participating in this imaginary regardless of their affinity to it. Examining policy documents and scholarly literature about the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in impact assessment, as well as political debates and mainstream media coverage about the conflict over the Coastal GasLink pipeline, draws attention to how elites’ active construction and protection of the boundary between knowledge and politics works to enroll Indigenous people into oil and gas jobs and, therefore, into the collective performing Canadian resource techno-nationalism. In both cases, elite actors deploy the resources at their disposal in ways that help funnel oil and gas workers into lives imagined for them, securing the power of the settler state in the process. This dynamic illustrates the importance of disentangling participation in the collective performance of sociotechnical imaginaries from freely given consent. Residents of liberal states can end up performing dominant imaginaries less out of any sense of affinity to them than as a response to the disciplinary power these imaginaries help sustain.

This thesis dives into the future imaginaries of blockchain professionals in Hanoi and Saigon. Looking at sites of futures enactment, and constant negotiations around an emerging technology, economy, and start-up ecology. The blockchain industry has risen to prominence in the socio-economic and technological imaginary of geeks, financial speculators, and states around the globe. In this thesis, I investigate a hitherto underexplored context of technological imagination. Based on physical and digital ethnographic fieldwork among blockchain professionals in Hanoi and Saigon and through an amalgamated theoretical lens with nodes in the anthropology of future imaginaries, emerging technologies, digital materiality, and anthropological theories of value, I set out to map and critically engage with the modes by which professionals in and around the Vietnamese blockchain industry imagine the future. These future imaginaries appear not only in speculative, predictive, and hopeful proclamation but too in present enactment; thus, doings in real time become crucial in this investigation. Technologies of imagination often deviate in form and teleology, so consequently, processual negotiations are continually unfolding. Convoluted alliances within actors are often placed at odds, or in line, with broader imaginaries predicated on different levels of social scale. These spaces between imagined future and enacted reality, along with how these are negotiated amongst, ultimately provide complex embedded contexts through which socio-technical assemblages, conceptualizations of value, and emerging phenomena can better be known in ways beyond techno-solutionist or -determinist narratives and critiques of multiple futures.

Esta tesis doctoral aborda el concurso de arquitectura como objeto de estudio acotado en un marco espacial y temporal: España, 1950-200X. Se propone como hipótesis de partida la idea de que el concurso de arquitectura opera como un imaginario sistémico a través de su difusión en las revistas profesionales. En este sentido, los concursos publicados constituyen un fragmento de la cultura arquitectónica muy significativo y, sin embargo, poco estudiado hasta la fecha, que permite observar sus dinámicas como espacios de acción y de influencia disciplinar, y, por tanto, posibilita reconstruir el relato asociado a dichas competiciones a través de sus editoriales. De manera general, los principales objetivos de la investigación son: completar y sistematizar el vacío de conocimiento específico en relación al tema; inventariar los concursos nacionales difundidos en las revistas periódicas de impacto de edición española (1950-200X); analizar los discursos en torno al concurso de los medios en correspondencia con sus políticas editoriales; relacionar su interés con el de las propias publicaciones que se hacen eco para analizar su instrumentalización; comprender las dinámicas del concurso como campo de producción cultural y evidenciar sus imaginarios. El estudio comienza con una primera aproximación teórica en la que el concurso de arquitectura se determina como objeto material y objeto formal de conocimiento, es decir, se expone el proceso histórico mediante el cual cristaliza como institución, y se realiza una aproximación a los distintos posicionamientos epistemológicos existentes en torno a este. De dicho acercamiento se extrae una metodología específica cuyo corpus de estudio lo constituye la difusión del concurso en las revistas profesionales. Estos principios metodológicos se han llevado a cabo según una lógica cuantitativa y cualitativa basada en la caracterización de cada medio y la selección de 100 casos de estudio -constituidos como ‘colección’- de entre el millar de concursos vaciados en los índices de más de 2.000 números de revistas. Los resultados de todo el material compilado y el procesamiento de sus datos se muestran de forma diagramática con el fin de objetivar la máxima información y caracterizar cada revista. Atendiendo a estas hipótesis, objetivos y metodología, la tesis doctoral queda compuesta por dos tomos que mantienen un vínculo indisoluble. El primero lo constituye el cuerpo del trabajo de investigación y, el segundo, la ‘colección’, es decir, su base documental. Dicha colección ha permitido construir un relato analítico transversal que, a modo de propuesta historiográfica y crítica, establece cuatro etapas diferenciadas según la instrumentalización del concurso en los medios: contiendas por la modernidad entre autarquía y desarrollismo (1950-196X); concursos como espacios de investigación para el aperturismo y la transición (196X-198X); convocatorias para los acontecimientos icónicos del cambio (198X-199X); competiciones como escenografías del espectáculo global (199X-200X). Finalmente, el epílogo cierra la tesis con unas breves conclusiones que enumeran las principales aportaciones de la investigación, así como sugerencias para sus futuros desarrollos. / This doctoral thesis explores the architecture competition as a delimited object of study within a spatial and temporal framework: Spain, 1950-200X. The starting hypothesis suggests that the architecture competition functions as a systemic imaginary through its dissemination in professional magazines. In this sense, the published competitions constitute a significant, yet understudied, fragment of architectural culture that allows observing their dynamics as spaces of action and disciplinary influence, and, consequently, enable the reconstruction of the narrative associated with these competitions through their editorials. In general, the main objectives of the research are: to fill and systematise the specific knowledge gap related to the topic; inventory national competitions disseminated in Spanish-language influential periodicals (1950-200X); analyse discourses surrounding competitions in the media in correspondence with their editorial policies; relate their interest to the publications themselves that echo them to analyse their instrumentalisation; understand the dynamics of the competition as a field of cultural production and highlight its imaginaries. The study begins with a theoretical approach in which the architecture competition is defined as both a material and formal object of knowledge, i.e., the historical process through which it crystallises as an institution is presented, and various epistemological positions around it are explored. A specific methodology is derived from this approach, with the corpus of the study being the dissemination of the competition in professional magazines. These methodological principles have been carried out through quantitative and qualitative logic, characterising each medium and selecting 100 case studies -constituting a ‘collection’- from the thousands of competitions listed in the indices of over 2,000 magazine issues. The results of the compiled material and the processing of its data are presented diagrammatically to maximise information objectification and characterise each magazine. In line with these hypotheses, objectives, and methodology, the doctoral thesis is composed of two volumes that are indissolubly linked. The first volume constitutes the body of the research work, and the second is the ‘collection’, i.e., its documentary basis. This collection has allowed the construction of a transversal analytical narrative that, as a historiographical and critical proposal, establishes four stages differentiated by the instrumentalisation of the competition in the media: struggles for modernity between autarky and developmentalism (1950-196X); competitions as research spaces for openness and transition (196X-198X); calls for iconic events of change (198X-199X); closed competitions as scenographies of the global spectacle (199X-200X). Finally, the epilogue concludes the thesis with brief conclusions listing the main contributions of the research, along with suggestions for its future development.

No description available.

The model used as the basis for regulation of human radiation exposures in the United States has been a source of controversy for decades because human health consequences have not been determined with statistically meaningful certainty for the dose levels allowed for radiation workers and the general public. This dissertation evaluates the evolution of the science and regulation of radiation health effects in the United States since the early 1900s using actor-network theory and the concept of co-production of science and social order. This approach elucidated the ordering instruments that operated at the nexus of the social and the natural in making institutions, identities, discourses, and representations, and the sociotechnical imaginaries animating the use of those instruments, that culminated in a regulatory system centered on the linear no-threshold dose-response model and the As Low As Reasonably Achievable philosophy. The science of radiation health effects evolved in parallel with the development of radiation-related technologies and the associated regulatory system. History shows the principle of using the least amount of radiation exposure needed to achieve the desired effect became established as a social convention to help avoid inadvertent harm long before there was a linear no-threshold dose-response model. Because of the practical need to accept some level of occupational radiation exposure, exposures from medical applications of radiation, and some de minimis exposure to the general public, the ALARA principle emerged as an important ordering instrument even before the linear no-threshold model had gained wide support. Even before ALARA became the law, it had taken hold in a manner that allowed the nuclear industry to rationalize its operations as representing acceptable levels of risk, even though it could not be proven that the established exposure limits truly precluded harm to the exposed individuals. Laboratory experiments and epidemiology indicated that a linear dose-response model appeared suitable as a "cautious assumption" by the 1950s. The linear no-threshold model proved useful to both the nuclear establishment and its detractors. In the hands of proponents of nuclear technologies, the model predicted that occupational exposures and exposures to the public represented small risks compared to naturally occurring levels of radiation and other risks that society deemed acceptable. Conversely, opponents of nuclear technologies used the model to advance their causes by predicting health impacts for undesirable numbers of people if large populations received small radiation exposures from sources such as fallout from nuclear weapon testing or effluents from nuclear reactor operations. In terms of sociotechnical imaginaries, the linear no-threshold model was compatible with both of the dominant imaginaries involved in the actor-network. In the technocratic imaginary of institutions such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the model served as a tool for qualified experts to make risk-informed decisions about applications of nuclear technologies. In the socially progressive imaginary of the citizen activist groups, the model empowered citizens to formulate arguments informed by science and rooted in the precautionary principle to challenge decisions and actions by the technocratic institutions. This enduring dynamic tension has led to the model retaining the status of "unproven but useful" even as the underlying science has remained contested. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation provides a social science perspective on an enduring paradox of the nuclear industry: why is regulation of radiation exposure based on a model that everyone involved agrees is wrong? To answer that question, it was necessary to delve into the history of radiation science to establish how safety regulation began and evolved along with the understanding of radiation's health effects. History shows the philosophy of keeping radiation exposures as small as possible for any given application developed long ago when the health effects of radiation were very uncertain. This practice turned out to be essential as science started to indicate that there may not be a safe threshold dose below which radiation exposure had no potential for health consequences. By the 1950s, a combination of theory, experiments, health studies of the survivors of the World War II atomic bombings, and other evidence suggested that the risk of cancer was proportional to the amount of radiation a person received (i.e., linear). Although this "linear no-threshold" model was far from proven, both sides used it in debates over nuclear weapon testing and safety standards for nuclear reactors in the 1950s through the early 1970s. Since the model predicted small health risks for the levels of radiation experienced by radiation workers and the public, nuclear advocates used it to argue that the risks were smaller than many other risks that people accept every day. At the same time, opposing activists used the model to argue that small cancer likelihoods added up to a lot of cancers when large populations were exposed. This decades-long discourse effectively institutionalized the model. The model's "unproven but useful" status was strengthened in the early 1970s when the Atomic Energy Commission supplemented its numeric exposure limits by turning the longtime practice of dose minimization into a requirement. This "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" requirement plays a vital role in rationalizing why a non-zero exposure limit is safe enough despite the fact that the linear no-threshold model treats any amount of radiation as harmful.

Historical accounts depict NASA's interactions with American citizens beyond government agencies and aerospace firms since the 1950s and 1960s as efforts to 'sell' its human space flight initiatives and to position external publics as would-be observers, consumers, and supporters of such activities. Characterizing citizens solely as celebrants of NASA's successes, however, masks the myriad publics, engagement modes, and influences that comprised NASA's efforts to forge connections between human space flight and citizens after Apollo 11 culminated. While corroborating the premise that NASA constantly seeks public and political approval for its costly human space programs, I argue that maintaining legitimacy in light of shifting social attitudes, political priorities, and divided interest in space flight required NASA to reconsider how to serve and engage external publics vis-à-vis its next major human space program, the Space Shuttle. Adopting a sociotechnical imaginary featuring the Shuttle as a versatile technology that promised something for everyone, NASA sought to engage citizens with the Shuttle in ways appealing to their varied, expressed interests and became dependent on some publics' direct involvement to render the vehicle viable economically, socially, and politically. NASA's ability and willingness to democratize the Shuttle proved difficult to sustain, however, as concerns evolved following the Challenger accident among NASA personnel, political officials, and external publics about the Shuttle's purpose, value, safety, and propriety. Mapping the publics and engagement modes NASA regarded as crucial to the Shuttle's legitimacy, this case study exposes the visions of public accountability and other influences -- including changing perceptions of a technology -- that can govern how technoscientific institutions perceive and engage various external publics. Doing so illuminates the prospects and challenges associated with democratizing decisions and uses for space and, perhaps, other technologies managed by U.S. government agencies while suggesting a new pathway for scholarly inquiry regarding interactions between technoscientific institutions and external publics. Expanding NASA's historical narrative, this study demonstrates that entities not typically recognized as space program contributors played significant roles in shaping the Shuttle program, substantively and culturally. Conceptualizing and valuing external publics in these ways may prove key for NASA to sustain human space flight going forward. / Ph. D.

This dissertation analyzes the possibilities and limits of art to perform upon borders in the Americas, and to open space for individuals to encounter, experience, and imagine them otherwise. I share the story here of my journeys with two touring transnational art groups working at and across borders: The Frontera Project and Maré from the Inside. The Frontera Project is a community-engaged bi-national performance of varied stories about the U.S.-Mexico border, that aims to complicate simplistic narratives of that border and build connection across difference. Maré from the Inside is an evolving multimedia exhibition addressing the Maré favela complex in Rio de Janeiro that grew out of a collaboration between 'outside' researchers and artists living in that neighborhood. I ask: how are artist/scholars experiencing and imagining borders? How does art perform and (re)shape social, cultural, and political borders? To this end, I place border/lands studies, performance studies, and feminist international relations in dialogue and draw on my ethnographic fieldwork across different sites in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil to examine the ways that politically engaged artists seek to navigate and shape multi-scalar borders. Overall, I argue that Maré and Frontera valorize artistic expression as a form of thought and open space for alternate border imaginaries that challenge existing social frames. They do this through varied performance strategies and processes of collective artmaking that involve careful consideration of the content of their work (whose stories to tell, what the stories contain, what images to use), in tandem with embodied performances that facilitate encounters at and across difference. I utilize collaborative, arts-based methods, drawing on the artists' insights, and further reflect on the possibilities of these methods to challenge prevailing approaches in international relations. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation considers how art can shift the way people imagine the world around them. More specifically, I look at how art acts upon, or shapes, how people imagine borders of different kinds. This includes international boundaries, neighborhood divisions, and the contours of identity in North and South America. I investigate how two art groups have sought to create opportunities to re-think, experience, and imagine borders in new ways. The Frontera Project is a community-engaged bi-national performance of varied stories concerning the U.S.-Mexico border that offers daily-life narratives of that boundary and builds connection across difference. Maré from the Inside is an evolving multimedia exhibition addressing the Maré favela complex in Rio de Janeiro that grew out of a collaboration between 'outside' researchers and artists living in that neighborhood. In this dissertation I ask: how are these artist/scholars experiencing and imagining borders? How does art perform and (re)shape social, cultural, and political borders? Placing border/lands studies, performance studies, and feminist international relations in dialogue and drawing on visits to different sites in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil, I argue that Maré and Frontera valorize artistic expression as a form of thought and open space for alternate border imaginaries that challenge existing social frames. They do this through careful considerations of the content of their work (what the stories contain, whose stories to tell, what images to use), in tandem with embodied performances that facilitate encounters at and across difference.