Maybe over coffee – or out walking around in the city – we decided that we liked the literary form of the abstract. Why is the abstract so beautiful? Is it because it is unformed, full of potential? Is the abstract more like a poem than an essay or an article? Is it because of its length that the abstract beckons? A “call” for papers, a “call” for sessions: this suggests that someone is out there, calling out, through a similar text, sometimes with just a few sentences, sometimes just a page.

This teaching material on interdisciplinarity in technology and social change contains several entries in alphabetical order. We start this manual on interdisciplinarity with a zero to open up for a critical approach to classifications, scientific practice, technology, and knowing. At the library, books on interdisciplinarity are cataloged as 000. If written out, the number is spelled with a z and put last in the English alphabet. The zero revolutionized counting and mathematical studies, and the binary of 0 and 1 is a fundamental aspect of our data-driven and extensively interconnected lives. The 0 can be used as a binary to 1 in mathematical theory and as a measurement. At absolute zero temperature, all atoms are still as ontological transformations can be “rendered through heating and cooling” (Boyer 2018: 227), similar to disciplining and undisciplining processes.The organization of the material in this booklet on interdisciplinarity draws inspiration from various sources. One such source is the innovative novel Hopscotch by the Argentine author Julio Cortázar. Cortázar encourages the reader to be active and decide which chapters to start with, allowing for potentially disordered reading. Similarly, the entries in this dictionary can be read in any order, with each order potentially offering a new meaning to the content and ideas expressed here. The Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA) at Linköping University is well-known for its interdisciplinary research and training. The department was established in 1980, with Tema Technology and Social Change (TEMA T) being one of its first thematic units. The activities at the unit are not only focused on PhD training; the staff are also involved in teaching, research, and national and international collaborations. While this text covers many aspects of interdisciplinarity in the department, it should not be seen as comprehensive.

The relationship between nuclear power and nature is saturated with ambiguities and contradictions emerging from the different technological, scientific, and socio-cultural understandings of the two terms. Stemming from Nuclear Natures, an ongoing research project at Linköping University in Sweden, this article provides six takes—or briefs, as we call them—on nuclear natures in the form of analyses of environmentalist anti-nuclear campaigning, uses of natures surrounding operational nuclear power plants, nuclear waste management, and afterlives of denuclearised environments. The article supports the view that a type of situated environmental writing is called for in attempts to understand the disparate histories and futures of nuclear natures.

Artikkelissa esitellään suomalaisten ydinvoimaa ja uraanin etsintää vastustavien kansalaisliikkeiden ja ympäristöjärjestöjen arkeologista perintöä kolmen esimerkkitapauksen avulla. Esimerkkitapausten kohteet ovat vuosille 1983–2010 ajoittuvia ja Suomen maantieteellisellä alueella sijaitsevia kalliohakkauksia, kalliotaideteoksia ja kivisiä muistomerkkejä, joita tarkastellaan artikkelissa niiden historiallisen, yhteiskunnallisen ja ydinvoimapoliittisen kontekstin valossa. Kohteiden arkeologista ja perinnöntutkimuksellista relevanssia arvioidaan artikkelissa esihistoriallisen kalliotaiteen ja tulevaisuuskommunikaation näkökulmasta. Artikkelin pääargumentti on, että koska ydinvoimanvastaisten kansalaisliikkeiden arkeologinen perintö on monitulkintaista ja nopeasti muuttuvia poliittisia asenteita tallentavaa, se tarjoaa arvokkaita mahdollisuuksia kulttuuriperinnön tulevaisuuden uudelleenajattelemiselle.

I artikeln presenteras det arkeologiska arvet för finländska medborgarrörelser och miljöorganisationer som motsätter sig kärnkraft och sökning av uran med hjälp av tre exempelfall. Lokalerna för exempelfallen är hällristningar, hällkonst och minnesmärken i sten belägna inom Finlands geografiska område och daterade till åren 1983–2010, vilka artikeln granskar i ljuset av deras historiska, samhälleliga och kärnkraftspolitiska kontext. I artikeln bedöms lokalernas arkeologiska och arvsforskningsmässiga relevans ur perspektivet av förhistorisk hällkonst och framtidskommunikation. Artikelns huvudargument är att det arkeologiska arvet för antikärnkraftmedborgarrörelser erbjuder värdefulla möjligheter för nytänkande av kulturarvets framtid, eftersom det arkeologiska arvet är mångtydigt och bevarar snabbt ändrande politiska attityder.

The aim of the article is to reframe speculation from being seen as synonymous with unacademic conjecture, or as a means for questioning consensus and established narratives, to becoming a productive practical engagement with the archaeological and responding to its intrinsic uncertainties. In the first part of the article, we offer a review of speculation in the history of archaeological reasoning. In the second part, we proceed to discussing ways of embracing the speculative mandate, referring back to our engagements with the art/archaeology project Ineligible and reflections on how to work with the unknowns and uncertainties of archaeology. In the third and last part, we conclude by making the case for fertilizing the archaeological potential nested in the empirical encounter, creating more inceptions than conclusions, fostering ambiguities, contradictions and new spaces of experiential inquiry. This leads us to suggest that—when working with the archaeological—speculation should be seen not only as a privilege, but also as an obligation, due to the inherent and inescapable uncertainties of the discipline. In other words, archaeology has been given a mandate for speculation through its material engagements.