Biomimicry informs an expanding range of ‘nature-inspired’ technologies developed in response to social and environmental problems. Although mimicry is common throughout biological life, the concept is attributed to Benyus’ foundational text, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997), and is conceptualized as the ‘conscious emulation of nature’ applied to the design of technologies and societies alike. We encounter examples of biomimicry across a variety of everyday contexts; in Velcro® closures modeled from seed pods of burdock plants (burrs), high-speed trains and planes with aerodynamic shapes mimicking beak and wing structures of birds, hydroelectric dams inspired by the architectural sensibilities of beavers, the Internet of Things (IoT) modeled after beehives, urban planning models using the puzzle-solving capacities of slime molds, and bio-based materials developed for carbon capture, among others.
Biomimicry is often described as a science of nature that draws on problem-solving approaches developed by biological organisms and systems over the past 3.8 billion years of life on Earth. It is also regarded as a science of technology that draws upon this repository of solutions to create new technologies and technical cultures (Fisch 2017). Critiques of biomimicry note that its division of nature and culture, marking the cultural production of nature as an ontologically distinct, exploitable, and ‘natural’ resource (Johnson & Goldstein 2015). This angle of approach situates biomimicry among projects of bioprospecting, biopiracy, and the appropriation of biological life and knowledges thereof from ecosystems and societies rendered exploitable through the growth of bio-economies (Reid 1993; Shiva 1998; Birch & Tyfield 2012). These practices continually transform nonhuman life into fungible forms of biovalue and biocapital (Waldby 2002; Rajan 2006; Rose 2007; Helmreich 2008; Mitchell & Waldby 2010). Bio-economic approaches provide useful yet partial points of entry. Biomimicry also gathers humans and more-than-humans into generative assemblages mediated through science and technology, wherein multiple bio-logics and vitalities converge and emerge anew (Donati; 2019; Szymanski 2024).
We encourage submissions situated within Science and Technology Studies (STS), History of Science (HOS), and adjacent disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, with implications for fields including biology, botany, ecology, urban planning, architecture, engineering, material science, and various approaches to design.
For more information, please see the full 4S Backchannel CfP here.
Questions regarding submissions can be sent to Aaron Gregory at aaron.gregory@ucr.edu and Bri Matusovsky (UCSF, UC Berkeley) at brimatusovsky@gmail.com
The deadline for submissions is May 1st, 2026.
