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This article develops an ontological approach to study meditation in practice. Recognizing that social studies of meditation are dominated by critical and humanist standpoints, it suggests that the politics of meditation should not be indexed to hegemonic social forces – capitalism, neoliberalism, medicalization – but to what it can do to bodies, selves and environments through particular performances and engagements with non-humans. In order to develop this argument, the article delves into two popular practices of meditation – Vipassana, in the tradition of S. N. Goenka, and Mindfulness, according to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. The empirical data stem from fieldwork carried out between 2010 and 2013 in France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with meditators, as well as participant observation at meditation retreats and local practice groups. The article explores how these two articulations of Vipassana and Mindfulness allow practitioners to reconfigure how they perform their bodies and selves, leaning towards versions of subjectivity that contrast with paradigmatic versions of the modern self. It suggests that the ontological politics of meditation are multiple, involving a wide range of performances, effects and arrangements, requiring social scientists to take into account how meditation unfolds in practice in order to avoid totalizing generalizations.

AbstractThis article outlines and estimates a measure of underlying efficiency in electricity consumption for an unbalanced panel of 27 transition economies and 6 European OECD countries between 1994 and 2007. A Bayesian Generalized True Random Effects stochastic frontier model with persistent and transient inefficiency is considered by estimating an aggregate electricity demand function that leads to consumption efficiency scores, giving further insights than a simple analysis of energy intensity. There is evidence of convergence between the CIS countries and a block of Eastern European and OECD countries, although other country groups do not follow this tendency, such as the Balkans.

Proceedings of the 6th STS Italia Conference, Trento, November 24-26, 2016 ; Over the past three decades, psychologists, neuroscientists, phenomenologists and educators have displayed a growing interest in mindfulness, a contemplative practice which aims at enhancing the experience of the present moment. Mindfulness has been implemented in the prevention of stress and heart diseases and in the management of pain. Encounters between scientists and practitioners of mindfulness have filled the public imagination of mindfulness with images of brain scans, visual testimonies of the effectiveness of this practice. Despite the technical apparatus involved in mindfulness research and thousands of articles written on the topic, early researchers, such as Francisco Varela, recognized that the methodological intricacies of studying contemplative technologies, usually practiced in silence, required the need to intertwine first and third person approaches to the study of consciousness. The passionate and often personal relationship with mindfulness tends to complicate the boundaries between research and self–care, pointing towards new ontological politics which are embodied, somaesthetic and often escape academic orthodoxies. This paper analyses the assemblage of mindfulness, showing how it entangles topics such as silence, the brain and biopolitics. Through the support of STS literature, the article explores the relationship between the anatomo–politics of mindfulness and contemporary formations of subjectivity.

Geoengineering consists of a set of techniques whose aim is to avoid the disastrous consequences of global warming, such as solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal. Due to its controversial nature, over the past decade various exercises of public participation with geoengineering have been put in place, particularly in the Global North. This article draws on empirical data stemming from six online focus groups on public engagement with geoengineering conducted in Portugal. In contrast to previous research, we included situated publics to emphasize the political implications of geoengineering, bringing to the debate those with a potential stake in the matter - environmentalists, activists, university students, science communicators and promoters of holistic practices. We suggest that the elusive and uncertain character of geoengineering moves the discussion away from its technological specificity, bringing to the fore some of the socio-political, economic and ethical tensions underpinning the climate crisis.

The Anthropocene brings to the fore the need to foster ontologies that reject the modern "one-world world" (Law 2015) model, characterized by extractivism, dualism and human exceptionalism, requiring the enactment of pluriverses (de la Cadena & Blaser 2018) that recognize the heterogeneous clamor of human and non-human agency. As an attempt to listen-with those oppressed and silenced by the modern extractivist paradigm, in this paper, we propose the mobilization of relational, dialogic and nondualistic methodologies that attend to subaltern and more-than-human worlds. Drawing on a variety of sources – such as the Parliament of Things, the Council of All Beings, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, meditative and artistic practices –, our article speculatively engages with affective, situated, hybrid and counter hegemonic methodologies that articulate contemplative practices, the arts, more-than-human agency and local communities, recognizing that politics, aesthetics and affect are intimately entwined. Our experimental endeavour is centred on three case studies that encapsulate some of the socio-political and technological tensions of our current zeitgeist – wildfires, geoengineering, and lithium mining –, speculating on how pluriversal methodologies can bring to the fore the many worlds silenced by the modern "one-world world".

The Anthropocene brings to the fore the need to foster ontologies that reject the modern "one-world world" (Law 2015) model, characterized by extractivism, dualism and human exceptionalism, requiring the enactment of pluriverses (de la Cadena & Blaser 2018) that recognize the heterogeneous clamor of human and non-human agency. As an attempt to listen-with those oppressed and silenced by the modern extractivist paradigm, in this paper, we propose the mobilization of relational, dialogic and nondualistic methodologies that attend to subaltern and more-than-human worlds. Drawing on a variety of sources – such as the Parliament of Things, the Council of All Beings, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, meditative and artistic practices –, our article speculatively engages with affective, situated, hybrid and counter hegemonic methodologies that articulate contemplative practices, the arts, more-than-human agency and local communities, recognizing that politics, aesthetics and affect are intimately entwined. Our experimental endeavour is centred on three case studies that encapsulate some of the socio-political and technological tensions of our current zeitgeist – wildfires, geoengineering, and lithium mining –, speculating on how pluriversal methodologies can bring to the fore the many worlds silenced by the modern "one-world world".

During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social "impacts" of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics.

This article analyses sociotechnical imaginaries of energy transition emerging from the Portuguese Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality 2050 (RNC2050). It expands literature on the articulations between sociotechnical imaginaries and energy transitions by introducing the Portuguese context and delving into an original and understudied case study – the RNC2050. We contend that the RNC2050 illustrates how energy transitions enable multiple – and, often times, conflicting – sociotechnical imaginaries, which, in turn, outline diverse associations between science, society and politics to address the climate crisis. By exploring how distinct actors and social groups resort to the RNC250 to support their own understandings and pathways to carbon neutrality, we argue that this document can be interpreted as a boundary object. We conducted nineteen semi-structured interviews and one informal conversation with members from three different stakeholder groups (the RNC2050 execution team; political entities; civil society). Drawing on our empirical data, four sociotechnical imaginaries were identified – Modernization and Techno-Economic Development; Green Economy; Energy Citizenship; Just Transition – and characterized, detailing their key features and associated stakeholders. We discuss our results highlighting six relevant aspects: the situatedness of stakeholders; the RNC2050 as a boundary object; dynamics of inclusion/exclusion, counter-hegemonic imaginaries, and power issues; the co-option of subaltern imaginaries; and the evolution of imaginaries across time. Although arising from the Portuguese context, we contend that these results are relevant for energy transitions research more broadly, as well as for energy transition policymakers. We conclude by presenting some of the policy implications of our study.

Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e Telecomunicações ; Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles that have proliferated the market due to their low cost and the many applications that can already be associated to them. Besides the common use of these devices for playful activities, as aerial event recording, they demonstrate an enormous potential in other applications, such as military, as search and rescue or reconnaissance missions, or commercial, for example: surveillance and inspection of crops. However, most commercial devices currently available suffer from a major drawback in terms of their dependence of batteries which, in consequence of the large energy demand supplied to the drone's engines, quickly discharge. In addition, the weight of these batteries typically implies that more power is needed to keep the drone flying. This drawback can be overcome, or attenuated, using dedicated wireless power transmission systems that enable the devices to maintain flight without the need of batteries or simply charging them while in use. Throughout this dissertation a microwave wireless power transmission system working at 5.8 GHz will be described in detail, with emphasis on the design of the microstrip antenna array developed to allow directive transmission and the rectenna proposed for reception and power conversion. The proposed system allows the used quadcopter to boot and link with its remote control and demonstrates the potential to be adapted for other purposes. ; Drone é a designação normalmente atribuída a veículos aéreos não tripulados que se têm proliferado no mercado devido ao seu baixo custo e inúmeras aplicações. Além do seu uso em actividades lúdicas, como o já comum registo aéreo de eventos, demonstram um enorme potencial noutras aplicações, tanto militares, missões de busca e salvamento e reconhecimento de terreno, como comerciais, sendo exemplo a vigilância e inspecção de campos de colheita. No entanto, maioria dos dispositivos comerciais actualmente disponíveis padecem de uma grande limitação no que ...

This article is focused on nuclear transboundary issues between Portugal and Spain, two countries that share a long history of nuclear collaboration and conflict of late, where national borders played a crucial role. The issues at stake cover the full spectrum of the nuclear cycle: uranium mining, power production and waste disposal. The first stage, under two fascist dictatorships, was characterised by collaboration within a common techno-political imaginary, where nuclear energy was understood as a driver of modernity, but with the absence of the public in decision-making processes. The second stage was marked by the advent of democracy in both countries and the reconfiguration of nuclear policies: while Portugal abandoned the nuclear endeavour, Spain implemented a nuclear moratorium but kept ten reactors operative. The third phase, which started in 1986 and goes until the present time, was marked by two crucial events: joining the European Communities (EC) and the Chernobyl accident. The first event allowed Brussels to become a referee on Spanish/Portuguese nuclear disputes. The second one implied that Portugal expanded its institutional vigilance on Spanish nuclear activities and led to the emergence of transboundary social movements against nuclear power.