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This is an archive. The website is no longer updated.

The overarching program of the LOST Research Network between 2002 and 2023 mainly focussed on practices of evidence making under conditions of deep uncertainty and on the ways in which these are co-constituted with practices of designing futures. It started from the assertion that modern public life implicates the quest for ‘matters of fact’ that are institutionally certified as objective. This quest resulted from the juridico-political pursuit of accountability in ordering practices, which incriminates predictability of future scenarios. As such the program was located in the anthropology of knowledge production and science and technology studies (STS). Examination of the ways in which certain matters of fact are certified provided crucial insights into the futures people design for the conduct of public life in the face of invincible uncertainty.

Featured projects

The haunting of colonialism (completed project)

This study examines the future inscribed into the restitution of artworks originating from the Kingdom of Benin and asks how current articulations of provenance research retain colonial technologies.

Digital Imaginaries (Completed Project)

The project brought together artistic and scholarly contributions to reflect on how African imaginaries of possible futures shape and are shaped by the workings of digital technologies on the continent.

Curriculum Development (Completed Project)

The aim of this project was to publish five open access volumes of case studies that stimulate curiosity about how science and technology play an important role in African contexts. The volumes will be published by Brill in 2023-2024.

Recent publications

Translating Technology in Africa. Volume 1: Metrics. Rottenburg, Richard, Faeeza Ballim, and Bronwyn Kotzen (eds.) (2024)
Une histoire politique du recensement au Ghana aux 20e et 21e siècles. Thiel, Alena (2022)

In Statistique et Société
Catastrophic Art. Moradi, Fazil (2022)

In Public Culture

Blog

Obituary for Dr. Sylvanus Nicholas Spencer 04 Nov 2021 Andrea Behrends

It is with great sadness that we announce the untimely death of our dear colleague and member of the LOST research group, Dr. Sylvanus Nicholas Spencer. After his doctorate in 2012, he has been a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of History and African Studies at the...

Victimisation is colonial thinking as well 04 Nov 2021 Uli Beisel

Regarding: DLF Wissenschaft im Brennpunkt, 27.12.2020: "Colonial thinking in science: ethical dumping"

 

Authors (in alphabetical order)

Dr. Kwaku Poku Asante, Director Kintampo Health Research Centre und Co-­PI Phase II and III RTS,S malaria vaccine trials,...

Partnerships

CONTACT

richard.rottenburg@wits.ac.za

Richard Rottenburg
Science and Technology Studies
WiSER
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg

ABOUT THE LOST RESEARCH NETWORK

The acronym LOST stands for Law, Organization, Science and Technology. Anthropology of Law (L), Organization Studies (O), and Science and Technology Studies (ST) are three vibrant transdisciplinary fields. Working at their intersections and merging their approaches, we also emphasize the economic, political, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of fact-making in the present. The ambition of our detailed ethnographies is to respond to long-standing questions raised in social theory and philosophy, and vice versa, to translate these questions into ethnographic inquiry with a particular focus on critique. We address questions of global and planetary scope, although several of our empirical projects are located in Africa. Since its founding in 2002, LOST has grown from a small group based in Halle, Germany, to a decentralized network of independent scholars in many countries. Its vibrant activities have been winding down for a few years so that during 2024 this website is being turned into an archive.

http://lost-research-group.org/
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