Past-Proofing Infrastructure Futures: Usable Histories of Urban Technology Today

在关于气候、环境和社会危机的日益紧迫的辩论中，对未来的讨论淹没了对过去的思考。历史作为社会方向指南针的价值很容易被忽视。拟议中的研究项目以基础设施为例，展示如何将历史作为一种经验资源，帮助我们应对当今面临的多重危机。报告认为，对面向未来的基础设施系统的有效呼吁需要基于对过去的健全、批判性和包容性的理解，才能发挥作用：这一过程在这里被称为“面向过去”的基础设施未来。该项目结合了三个方面的学术研究——可用的过去、技术的历史和作为历史媒介的社会技术纠缠的城市基础设施——对城市技术的可用历史进行了概念上的、方法上的创新和经验上的丰富分析，并借鉴了世界范围内可用的过去倡议以获得灵感。该项目的总体目的是产生关于如何批判性地和富有成效地动员过去的知识，以帮助塑造城市能源和水基础设施系统的变革途径，并将柏林作为经验案例研究和知识传播的场所。该项目追求四个核心目标：首先，基于对学术文献、项目和网络的广泛回顾，对可用过去的概念和实践形成强有力、细致和包容的理解；其次，分析和完善阐明和传播可用过去的方法；第三，与基础设施专业人士、政策制定者和知识中介机构密切合作，共同为柏林生成可用的基础设施历史；建立和巩固一个全球可用的历史研究网络。该工作计划包括六个工作包（WP），将柏林城市技术史（WP3）的实证研究嵌入到可用过去研究（WP1）的更广泛背景中，并分析来自世界各地的现有可用过去项目和网络（WP2），以便与当地利益相关者一起探索和测试可用过去的应用（WP4）。在技术历史、城市和基础设施研究（WP5）方面获得一般性的学术发现，并建立一个能够在项目生命周期之外维持学术研究的可用过去的国际研究网络（WP6）。项目团队将与实践合作伙伴（柏林的公用事业和博物馆）持续互动，以确保项目的可行性，为城市基础设施服务的提供者、政策制定者和用户提供真正可用的过去。

In increasingly urgent debates about climate, environmental and societal crises, talk of the future is drowning out consideration of the past. The value of history as a compass for societal orientation is being all-too-readily overlooked. The proposed research project uses the case of infrastructure to demonstrate how history can be used as an experiential resource to help navigate the multiple crises we are facing today. It contends that the valid call to future-proof infrastructure systems needs to draw on a sound, critical and inclusive understanding of the past if it is to be effective: a process characterized here as ‘past-proofing’ infrastructure futures. The project combines three strands of scholarship – on usable pasts, on the history of technology and on urban infrastructures as historically mediated sociotechnical entanglements – to produce a conceptually grounded, methodologically innovative and empirically rich analysis of usable histories of urban technology, drawing on usable past initiatives worldwide for inspiration. The overarching purpose of this project is to generate knowledge on how the past can be mobilized, critically and productively, to help shape transformative pathways for urban infrastructure systems of energy and water, using Berlin as an empirical case study and site for knowledge dissemination. The project pursues four core objectives: first, to develop a robust, nuanced and inclusive understanding of the concept and practice of usable pasts, based on a wide-ranging review of academic literature, projects and networks, second, to analyse and refine methods for elucidating and disseminating usable pasts, third, to co-generate usable infrastructure histories for Berlin in close partnership with infrastructure professionals, policymakers and knowledge intermediaries and fourth, to initiate and consolidate a global research network on usable pasts. The work programme, comprising six work packages (WP), embeds empirical research on Berlin’s urban technology history (WP3) within the broader context of research on usable pasts (WP1) and an analysis of existing usable past projects and networks from around the world (WP2) so as to explore and test applications for usable pasts with local stakeholders (WP4), derive generic findings for scholarship on the history of technology and urban and infrastructure studies (WP5) and establish an international research network on usable pasts capable of sustaining scholarship beyond the project lifetime (WP6). The project team will interact continuously with practitioner partners (utilities and museums in Berlin) to ensure the project’s feasibility in delivering truly usable pasts to providers, policymakers and users of urban infrastructure services.