Reconsidering Disruption: STS Munich in Graz

“Disruption” travels fast - but at the STS Graz conference, the Munich crowd slowed it down. In their panel, “Disrupting the Narrative: Regional Innovation Cultures and its Continuities,” Cindy Rentrop and Nadine Osbild turned disruption into an object of analysis rather than an explanation. Their talk, “Narratives of Disruption in the German Mittelstand, Creative Districts, and Regional Innovation Cultures,” showed how claims of radical change are sustained by decidedly non-radical processes: incremental shifts, inherited knowledge, and the reworking of existing sociotechnical arrangements. What looks like rupture is, more often, continuity in motion. Michael Nitschmann and Silke Beck’s presentation, “Discovering the Treasure in the Underground: The Making of Deep Geothermal Energy Futures in Bavaria,” made a similar move in the context of energy transitions. Often framed as a disruptive technology, deep geothermal energy instead appears as an already there, already tested technology that needs to be newly established in every new place. Across the panel discussion, disruption emerged less as a description than as a narrative device - one that compresses time, amplifies novelty, and sidelines the ongoing, incremental contextualization of innovation. Jenny Graner's contribution, “A Tree in the Desert? The Coproduction of Environmental Care and Construction Innovation in Germany and Chile,” extended this insight. In her case study, Jenny finds institutional elites encouraging innovation through sustainability as a care connector, not disrupting the system, but rather keeping existing practices intact through mutual self-preservation. Taken together, STS Munich’s presence in Graz offered a critical perspective on the notion of disruption: disruption starts to look more like a narrative that is told about transformation.