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Call for contributions to workshop and book 'Hostility by Design'

In recent years, perhaps stimulated by the growing awareness of the power of digital technologies, there have been calls for engineers and designers to advance values ‘by design’, such as democracy, participation, privacy and transparency. This builds on earlier inclusive design and access-for-all initiatives. These positive developments demonstrate awareness that social values and political choices can be incorporated into the design of the technologies that people use at work, in the home and the hospital, while shopping and engaging with public administration, and in the wider built environment. But not all encounters with technologies are fulfilling, and some are designed to exclude or harm people, animals and nature. This workshop focuses on those technologies that could be described as hostile or exclusionary by design.

Within Science and Technology Studies (STS), one of the most famous (and contested) parables is the low-hanging overpasses on Long Island, described by Langdon Winner (1980) (for the contestation, see the 1999 debate in Social Studies of Science between Bernward Joerges, Steve Woolgar and Geoff Cooper). Designed and built in the early 20th century, only private cars could pass under them, at a time when cars were the preserve of the rich, so the story goes. More recently, Robert Rosenberger (2018) has described how policy and design work together to create what he calls ‘callous objects’ that push homeless people out of public spaces. Benches with armrests, as in the photo above, are a good example as they are designed to stop people lying down. Geert Lovink explores the ‘sadness by design’ of the ever-ubiquitous digital platforms.

In this workshop, participants are invited to share their own examples and theoretical reflections. In addition to the examples above, there are the obvious hostile technologies of nuclear and other weapons. We can also think about hostile infrastructures such as the Berlin Wall (1961-1989), and surveillance technologies, not solely the preserve of totalitarian regimes. When Home Secretary in the UK, Teresa May (2010-2016, later Prime Minister) proudly introduced policies to create a ‘hostile environment’ in order to deter immigrants. This included byzantine forms, billboards and vans with ‘Go Home’ painted on the sides. Other examples can be found in medicine and healthcare. For example, breast cancer screening can itself be painful, but also lead to personal and system costs if over-diagnosis exceeds early prevention. Some technologies start with benign design and intentions, but through decades of (under-) repair and maintenance might become hostile.

The purpose of this workshop is to gather empirical accounts and theoretical reflections, and to develop possibilities for interventions at different levels (design, policy, political action). Contributions that address the following topics and questions are welcome, but are not restricted to these topics:

  1. Case studies (past and present) of hostile technologies, describing for whom they are hostile, and under what conditions.
  2. Case studies of hostile technologies that have been successfully (or not) re-purposed or resisted.
  3. Case studies of initially benign technologies but which become hostile as a result of under-repair and maintenance.
  4. Items 2 and 3 relate to the complementarity of ‘friendly’ and ‘hostile’ by design, including dual-use technologies, transformations of one into the other, and changes over time in perception of what constitutes hostile.
  5. Typologies of hostile technologies, by application domain, historical moment, geographical location, or something else.
  6. Theoretical explorations of hostile technologies. Can we move beyond Winner’s distinction between inherently and contingently political technologies?
  7. ‘Hostile’ is a normative term. How can calling a technology ‘hostile’ be justified?
  8. What is meant by the qualification ‘hostile’? In what sense does it differ from the more general notion of ‘undesirable’?
  9. What is the opposite of ‘hostile’? Friendly, inviting, peaceful, neutral?
  10. How can technologies be simultaneously hostile and not hostile?
  11. How can recognition of hostile technologies inform future design, policy and political action?


Practical information

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Sally Wyatt (sally.wyatt@maastrichtuniversity.nl) by 8 January 2025. Abstracts must include the following: author name, contact details, and a maximum of three literature references. At the second stage, authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit a revised and substantially extended abstract together with a photo of their hostile technology if applicable or other illustration, to be included in the workshop material. The number of participants will not exceed 25 people.

There is no charge to attend the workshop. Lunch, dinner and other refreshments will be provided.
Participants must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation.

Wyatt is seeking a publisher for an edited collection, but no definite plans are yet available.

Important dates

  • Deadline for abstracts – 8 January 2025
  • Notification of acceptance – 5 February 2025, at the latest
  • Extended abstract, with photo or illustration – 7 May 2025
  • Workshop material circulated to participants – 1 June 2025
  • Workshop – 12-13 June 2025, in Maastricht


Organised by Sally Wyatt, Maastricht University Science, Technology and Society (MUSTS) research programme and Department of Society Studies, both in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS)

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