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Producing the “Highway to Nowhere”: Social Understandings of Space in Baltimore, 1944-1974 Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-10-01 Amanda K. Phillips de Lucas
The “highway to nowhere” is a 1.32 mile fragment of an arterial expressway located in Baltimore, Maryland. This segment was designed to contribute to a proposed limited access highway system that was never constructed after years of activism, debate, and lawsuits. This article examines the history of the construction of this highway segment to suggest that conflicts over the design, sitting, and construction
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Pandemic Sociology Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Martyn Pickersgill
In 1990, the sociologist Phil Strong wrote about “epidemic psychology” as part of his research on the recent history of AIDS. Strong described vividly how epidemics of fear, of explanation and moralization, and of (proposed) action accompanied the epidemic of the AIDS virus per se. In this essay, I draw on these formulations to think through the current COVID-19 crisis, illustrating too a pandemic
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Anachronistic Progress? User Notions of Lie Detection in the Juridical Field Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-08-16 Bettina Paul, Larissa Fischer, Torsten H. Voigt
In recent years, progress in the field of lie detection has been linked to technological advances from classic polygraphs to neuroscientific brain imaging. In our empirical investigation, however, we found different notions of progress that do not comply with the popular understanding of progress as technological innovation. We follow the users of lie detection procedures in Germany in order to discern
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Unintended by Design: On the Political Uses of “Unintended Consequences” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-08-01 Nassim Parvin, Anne Pollock
This paper revisits the term “unintended consequences,” drawing upon an illustrative vignette to show how it is used to dismiss vital ethical and political concerns. Tracing the term to its original introduction by Robert Merton and building on feminist technoscience analyses, we uncover and rethink its widespread usage in popular and scholarly discourses and practices of technology design.
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Lessons from Theranos: Changing Narratives of Individual Ethics in Science and Engineering Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-06-26 Melanie Jeske
The meteoric ascent and equally dramatic fall of Theranos has been covered prolifically in the media. Presented as an ambitious inventor gone rogue, the discursive construction of the Theranos scandal in popular media and in the biomedical community reifies tired narratives of the role of ethics in science and engineering fields more generally: narratives that emphasizes individual integrity and common
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The Conjoined Spectacles of the “Smart Super Bowl” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-06-26 Renee Shelby, Sarah Barnes, Nassim Parvin, Mary McDonald
This essay examines the Super Bowl and the smart city as conjoined spectacles. A focused case study on Super Bowl LIII and its staging in Atlanta, Georgia in 2019 allows us to investigate how the use of cutting-edge smart technologies, including cameras, sensors, artificial intelligence, image recognition, and data collection techniques to secure Mercedes Benz stadium naturalizes a broader anticipatory
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On Half-Built Assemblages: Waiting for a Data Center in Prineville, Oregon Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-06-20 Jenna Burrell
In 2010 the mega-corporation Facebook finalized an agreement to build a massive data center in Prineville, a small town in central Oregon previously known for logging, cattle ranching, and as the headquarters of the Les Schwab tire company. This was a largely unanticipated event that local leaders nonetheless prepared for several decades before when they designated a rural economic zone on the outskirts
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Engaging Theatre, Activating Publics: Theory and Practice of a Performance on Darwin Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-06-20 Saul E. Halfon, Cora Olson, Ann Kilkelly, Jane L. Lehr
The Theatre Workshop in Science, Technology and Society (TWISTS) is a unique public engagement project. Theoretically, TWISTS seeks to activate publics around contemporary science and technology issues by producing agonistic cultural spaces in which participants are confronted with and engaged by multiple perspectives. It thus seeks to enact a model of Public Engagement with Science and Technology
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Scaling Techno-Optimistic Visions Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-05-28 Seyram Avle, Cindy Lin, Jean Hardy, Silvia Lindtner
Techno-optimism, or the enduring belief that technology use and production are promising for humanity, is bound up in past and ongoing ideals of modernity, progress, and “development.” As a particular form of hope and aspiration, techno-optimism is harnessed for nation-building and economic development projects that invest in the promise of scaling. This article demonstrates that this enduring techno-optimism
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The Myths and Moral Economies of Digital ID and Mobile Money in India and Myanmar Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-05-28 Janaki Srinivasan, Elisa Oreglia
The diffusion of major new technologies in society is often accompanied by a set of myths that tell us how these technologies will change, clearly for the better, the social and economic fabric of a community. Digital technologies are associated with myths such as the death of distance and of mediators, the end of history and of politics (Brown and Duguid 2000; Mosco 2004). We build on Mosco’s idea
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Keep Diversity––Make Standards! Spaces of Standardization for Diversity Analyzed through Cattle Breeding Industry Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-04-02 Lidia Chavinskaia, Allison Marie Loconto
Standardization as spaces of diversity was introduced by Loconto and Demortain (2017) to advance the sociology of standards. Their analytical framework for studying standardization processes in interactive spaces is mobilized and expanded upon in this article in order to address the problematic relationship between standards and diversity. Studying industrialized animals highlights the existing tensions
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Regimes of Patienthood: Developing an Intersectional Concept to Theorize Illness Experiences Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-03-14 Kelly Ann Joyce, Jennifer E. James, Melanie Jeske
In this paper, we develop the concept regimes of patienthood . Regimes of patienthood highlights the micro and macro dimensions of illness, paying close attention to how the interplay between the two creates expectations and points of intervention for people when they are ill. Such expectations may vary across time, place, and social position (e.g., age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality).
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The Blank Slate E-State: Estonian Information Society and the Politics of Novelty in the 1990s Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-03-14 Aro Velmet
This article looks at how the discourse of an emerging information society in 1990s Estonia both rejected and depended on expertise from the Soviet Period. It traces the influence 1960s-trained cyberneticians and sociologists had on expanding the concept of an information society in the 1990s, to encompass issues such as regional inequality, national culture, and poverty, instead of focusing solely
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Sticks, Stones, and the Secular Bones of Indian Democracy Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-03-10 Monamie Bhadra Haines, Sreela Sarkar
While being inspired by the compelling social protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in India, the authors of this critical engagement argue that now, more than ever, is time to reflect on the nature of secularism that is being invoked by nonviolent protesters. What can a focus on lathi -wielding and stone-throwing, all low technologies of governance, tell
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When Mental Walls Lead to Physical Walls: The US-Mexico Border Wall, Art, and Public Conversations about the Social Responsibility of Engineering Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-03-10 Madison May Macias, Peter Pohorily, Jorge Morales Guerrero, Darshan M.A. Karwat
The fact that engineering is involved in highly political issues—from climate change caused by fossil fuel extraction to how we understand truth itself because of deepfakes—makes it imperative that we find new ways to highlight the crucial role that engineers and engineering play in shaping society, and new ways to hold engineers and engineering accountable. We have designed, built, and installed an
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Labor Out of Place: On the Varieties and Valences of (In)visible Labor in Data-Intensive Science Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-24 Michael J. Scroggins, Irene V. Pasquetto
We apply the concept of invisible labor, as developed by labor scholars over the last forty years, to data-intensive science. Drawing on a fifteen-year corpus of research into multiple domains of data-intensive science, we use a series of ethnographic vignettes to offer a snapshot of the varieties and valences of labor in data-intensive science. We conceptualize data-intensive science as an evolving
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The Methodologists: a Unique Category of Scientific Actors Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Nicole C. Nelson
This essay introduces a new analytical category of scientific actors: the methodologists. These actors are distinguished by their tendency to continue to probing scientific objects that their peers consider to be settled. The methodologists are a useful category of actors for science and technology studies (STS) scholars to follow because they reveal contingencies and uncertainties in taken-for-granted
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STS Currents against the “Anti-Science” Tide Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Abby J. Kinchy
This essay considers some possible relationships that STS scholars can have with activists who are resisting attacks on environmental science. STS scholars can document the counter-currents to the “anti-science” moment, work in partnership with activists outside of academia, use access to institutional resources to give environmental movements strength, use STS research to help activists better understand
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Du Boisian Propaganda, Foucauldian Genealogy, and Antiracism in STS Research Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Anthony Ryan Hatch
This essay explores the relationships between the “new” anti-science formation under Trump and the kinds of anti-Black racisms we are experiencing at present. What appears at first glance to be a new anti-science formation, isn’t new at all, but old wine in new cloth, all dressed up to confound and distract our gaze from power. The vast majority of Black and Brown people are not surprised nor fooled
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Drought, Hurricane, or Wildfire? Assessing the Trump Administration’s Anti-Science Disaster Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Scott Frickel, Christopher M. Rea
We describe the Trump Administration as an “anti-science disaster” and approach study of the phenomenon as other disaster researchers might study the impacts of a drought, hurricane, or wildfire. An important, but rare, element of disaster research is identification of baseline data that allow scientific assessment of changes in social and natural systems. We describe three potential baselines for
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Science and Democracy Reconsidered Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Joseph Harris
To what extent is the normative commitment of STS to the democratization of science a product of the democratic contexts where it is most often produced? STS scholars have historically offered a powerful critical lens through which to understand the social construction of science, and seminal contributions in this area have outlined ways in which citizens have improved both the conduct of science and
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We Have Never Been Anti-Science: Reflections on Science Wars and Post-Truth Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Michael Lynch
This essay addresses the so-called "post-truth" era in which scientific evidence of, for example, climate change, is given little weight compared to more immediate appeals to emotion and belief, and examines the relationship of alleged anti-science and populist irrationality to left- and right-wing political alignments. It also addresses charges of anti-science that were once leveled at Science and
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Learning in Crisis: Training Students to Monitor and Address Irresponsible Knowledge Construction by US Federal Agencies under Trump Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Chris Tirrell, Laura Senier, Sara Ann Wylie, Cole Alder, Grace Poudrier, Jesse DiValli, Marcy Beck, Eric Nost, Rob Brackett, Gretchen Gehrke
Immediately after President Trump’s inauguration, US federal science agencies began deleting information about climate change from their websites, triggering alarm among scientists, environmental activists, and journalists about the administration’s attempt to suppress information about climate change and promulgate climate denialism. The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) was founded
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Enchanted Determinism: Power without Responsibility in Artificial Intelligence Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Alexander Campolo, Kate Crawford
Deep learning techniques are growing in popularity within the field of artificial intelligence (AI). These approaches identify patterns in large scale datasets, and make classifications and predictions, which have been celebrated as more accurate than those of humans. But for a number of reasons, including nonlinear path from inputs to outputs, there is a dearth of theory that can explain why deep
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From Sideline to Frontline: STS in the Trump Era Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Daniel Lee Kleinman
The Trump presidency and its relationship to science and truth have prompted considerable reflection as well as significant action by STS scholars. Among those thinking, speaking, and acting are the authors of the articles in this thematic collection. This brief introduction summarizes the major strands in each of the articles, placing them in the context of current political trends.
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Low-Carbon Research: Building a Greener and More Inclusive Academy Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Anne Pasek
This essay examines how the fossil fuel energy regimes that support contemporary academic norms in turn shape and constrain knowledge production. High-carbon research methods and exchanges, particularly those that depend on aviation, produce distinct exclusions and incentives that could be reformed in the transition to a low-carbon academy. Drawing on feminist STS, alternative modes of collective research
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Hidden Injustice and Anti-Science Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Laurel Smith-Doerr
This essay responds to the five articles on Anti-Science in this journal issue by discussing a significant theme identified across all of them: hidden injustice. Some of the ways that injustice is hidden by organizational forces related to anti-science are identified. In response, the essay points to the need for empirical data on anti-science policies, a symmetric approach to anti-science contexts
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Upgraded to Obsolescence: Age Intervention in the Era of Biohacking Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2020-01-08 Kirsten L. Ellison
Popularized by DIY scientists and quantified-selfers, the language of “biohacking” has become increasingly prevalent in anti-aging discourse. Presented with speculative futures of superhuman health and longevity, consumers and patients are invited to “hack” the aging process, reducing age to one of the many programs, or rather “bugs” that can be re-written, removed, and rendered obsolete. Drawing on
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Rethinking Scientific Habitus: Toward a Theory of Embodiment, Institutions, and Stratification of Science Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-07-03 June Jeon
Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus has been largely absent in Science and Technology Studies (STS) despite its potential usefulness. In this essay, I develop the concept of scientific habitus as a useful way to think about scientific practices. I argue that scientific habitus may offer three contributions that illuminate scientists’ own micro-practices in relation to meso- and macro-level dynamics
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“All these worlds are yours except …”: Science Fiction and Folk Fictions at NASA Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-06-12 Janet Vertesi
Although they command real spacecraft exploring the solar system, NASA scientists refer frequently to science fiction in the course of their daily work. Fluency with the Star Trek series and other touchstone works demonstrates membership in broader geek culture. But references to Star Trek, movies like 2001 and 2010, and Dr. Strangelove also do the work of demarcating project team affiliation and position
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Post-truth and the Search for Objectivity: Political Polarization and the Remaking of Knowledge Production Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-04-03 Shreeharsh Kelkar
The United States has entered an era of “post-truth” as even seemingly proven facts seem open to contestation. The contests over facts range from the existential (when conservatives deny climate change) to the trivial (when the Trump administration questions the audience figures of its own inauguration ceremony). This essay combines two literatures on post-truth that rarely speak to each other: institutional
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Good Mothering Before Birth: Measuring Attachment and Ultrasound as an Affective Technology Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-03-23 Jennifer Denbow
The idea that fetal ultrasound is useful for promoting a pregnant woman’s emotional attachment to her fetus is commonplace in the United States. While STS scholars have examined many facets of ultrasound, scholars have not analyzed the medical construction of ultrasound as an affective technology. This article fills that gap by bringing feminist STS and affect studies together to examine medical understandings
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Translators Producing Knowledge: Where There Is No Doctor in Tamil Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-03-23 Lillian Walkover
where there is no doctor is one of the most widely used community health books in the world and has been translated into over 80 languages. this paper traces four aspects of translation in tamil-language editions of the text, including doctor illaadha idaththil and related books. first, translators choose and create language to produce a colloquial text related to, but different from, the original
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What is a Psychological Task? The Operational Pliability of “Task” in Psychological Laboratory Experimentation Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-03-23 Hazel Morrison, Shannon McBriar, Hilary Powell, Jesse Proudfoot, Steven Stanley, Des Fitzgerald, Felicity Callard
There has been no sustained sociological analysis of a near ubiquitous feature of psychological laboratory experimentation: the task. Yet the task is central in arranging the means by which phenomena are isolated and brought into the experimental scientist’s purview. As scientific objects, states such as mind wandering and daydreaming have been made visible in experiments that draw on a (sometimes)
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Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human-Robot Interaction Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2019-03-23 Madeleine Clare Elish
As debates about the policy and ethical implications of AI systems grow, it will be increasingly important to accurately locate who is responsible when agency is distributed in a system and control over an action is mediated through time and space. Analyzing several high-profile accidents involving complex and automated socio-technical systems and the media coverage that surrounded them, I introduce
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Doing Justice to Stories: On Ethics and Politics of Digital Storytelling Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-11-21 Nassim Parvin
Researchers and activists are increasingly drawing on the practice of collecting, archiving, and sharing stories to advance social justice, especially given the low cost and accessibility of digital technologies. These practices differ in their aims and scope yet they share a common conviction: that digital storytelling is empowering especially when curating and disseminating life stories of marginalized
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Policing the Fluff: The Social Construction of Scientistic Selves in Otherkin Facebook Groups Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-09-29 Devin Proctor
The Otherkin are a group of people who identify as other-than-human. Primarily gathering in online spaces, they discuss and debate the origins and parameters of this identification and try to make sense of their extraordinary experiences. This article traces how the Otherkin deploy scientific facts and theories during this process, arriving at Otherkin science , a carefully curated compilation of abstract
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Everyday Uncertainty Work: Making Sense of Biosynthetic Menthol Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-09-06 Robert Meckin, Andrew Balmer
Although much public engagement with the field of “synthetic biology” has been conducted, there remains little work that develops an appreciation of how people make sense of this field and its concomitant promised futures from within their everyday lives. Using a case study, based on the compound “menthol” (a terpenoid from plants) which synthetic biologists have developed for production in E. coli
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Response to Steve Hoffman's "The Responsibilities and Obligations of STS in a Moment of Post-Truth Demagoguery" Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-24 Noortje Marres
In this response to Steven Hoffman’s The Responsibilities and Obligations of STS in a Moment of Post-Truth Demagoguery," I insist on the importance of public knowledge, which requires that we distinguish between scientific and public facts. I differentiate between knowledge democracy and populism, as the former entails a refusal of hierarchical visions of the relation between science and politics.
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On SSK and Conversing with Scientists: Eugénia Rodrigues Talks with Michael J. Mulkay Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-24 Eugenia Rodrigues, Michael J. Mulkay
Mike Mulkay takes Eugenia Rodrigues through a journey that revisits his involvement in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and STS. They talk dates, career moves, foundational work, books, and how it all started with a denied visa application from the US. Running under this formalistic level, though, other themes emerge: the notion of a “field” and its meaning in STS; the observed lack of epistemological
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The Responsibilities and Obligations of STS in a Moment of Post-Truth Demagoguery Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-24 Steve G. Hoffman
Scientific expertise and the free press have come under sustained partisan attack with the political ascendance of right-wing nationalism. This has put some science and technology studies (STS) scholars in the difficult position of defending the legitimacy of science while maintaining a characteristic agnosticism toward “the facts.” In this essay, inspired by a reading of Noortje Marres’s (2018) critique
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Why We Can't Have Our Facts Back Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-24 Noortje Marres
How do we make the case for “knowledge democracy” in the face of the growing influence of right-wing figures and movements that denounce experts and expertise? While the threats to knowledge posed by these movements are real, it would be a mistake to return to a classic intellectual strategy––the politics of demarcation––in the face of this danger. Examining practical proposals for combatting fake
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Challenging Power, Constructing Boundaries, and Confronting Anxieties: Michael Kattirtzi Talks with Andrew Stirling Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-16 Michael Kattirtzi, Andrew Stirling
In this interview, Andy Stirling talks to Michael Kattirtzi about what initially drew him to Science and Technology Studies, his account of the impact of the Science Wars on the field, and why it matters that STS researchers do not shy away from challenging incumbents. Through a series of thoughtful reflections on his encounters with STS researchers, Stirling arrives at the conclusion that we should
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STS and the Importance of being a Collective: Gill Haddow Talks with Barry Barnes Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Gill Haddow, Barry Barnes
Professor Barry Barnes was a key, founding member of the early Science Studies Unit (SSU) at the University of Edinburgh. In this interview with Gill Haddow he reflects on what is was like to be part of this fertile period of scholarly enterprise with David Bloor and others and describes some of the key influences that effected his thinking such as Thomas Kuhn. The eighties were a time of political
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It’s Important to Go to the Laboratory: Malte Ziewitz Talks with Michael Lynch Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Malte Ziewitz, Michael Lynch
Why would anyone still want to go to the laboratory in 2018? In this interview, Michael Lynch answers this and other questions, reflecting on his own journey in, through, and alongside the field of science and technology studies (STS). Starting from his days as a student of Harold Garfinkel’s at UCLA to more recent times as editor of Social Studies of Science , Lynch talks about the rise of origin
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“Things Can Be Done Here That Cannot So Easily Be Done Elsewhere”: Jane Calvert Talks with Arie Rip Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Jane Calvert, Arie Rip
In this interview, Arie Rip talks to Jane Calvert about his life in STS and the history and future of the field. He begins in the late 1960s, when he started teaching a course in “chemistry and society.” He then gives a first-hand account of the formation of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), and the growth
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ST(&)S: Martyn Pickersgill Talks with Sheila Jasanoff Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Martyn Pickersgill, Sheila Jasanoff
In this interview, Sheila Jasanoff and Martyn Pickersgill discuss the contested meanings of STS, defined as either “science and technology studies” (often associated with European origins) or “science, technology, and society” (commonly seen as originating in the US). The interview describes how Jasanoff entered STS, and the ways in which she sought to bring together different traditions within the
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STS and its Challenging Obligations: Pablo Schyfter Talks with Donald MacKenzie Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Pablo Schyfter, Donald MacKenzie
In a wide-ranging interview, Donald MacKenzie and Pablo Schyfter discuss the former’s entry into science and technology studies (STS), the trajectory of the field since then, and his perspectives on its character today. MacKenzie recalls his discovery of STS through political activism, and his subsequent experiences at the young Edinburgh Science Studies Unit. He reflects on the field’s development
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STS as a Program of Ontological Disobedience: Koichi Mikami Talks with Steve Woolgar Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Koichi Mikami, Steve Woolgar
Is science and technology studies (STS) a luxury that our society cannot afford anymore? In this interview, Koichi Mikami tries to learn lessons from Steve Woolgar’s distinguished career on how the kind of sensibilities treasured within the field of STS and the type of critical engagement that its researchers aspire to might be best exercised in a changing landscape of higher education and academic
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“These Were Not Boring Meetings”: Miguel García-Sancho Talks with Karin Knorr Cetina Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Miguel Garcia-Sancho, Karin Knorr Cetina
In this interview, Karin Knorr Cetina evokes the first Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science at Cornell University in 1976 as a foundational moment for science and technology studies (STS). This conference consolidated a new approach to the study of science based on the anthropological observation of scientists at work in the laboratory. Knorr Cetina argues that, despite geographically
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The Whole World is Becoming Science Studies: Fadhila Mazanderani Talks with Bruno Latour Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Fadhila Mazanderani, Bruno Latour
How to survive in this forest? How to keep it alive? Latour poses these questions in relation to the current global ecological crisis; but they are equally apt when applied to the “forest”––or to use Latour’s own metaphor, “biodiversity”––of STS. In his interview, Latour puts forward a particular vision for STS’s survival; a vision of STS as neither critical of nor ancillary to science, but where a
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Introduction: Talking STS Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Fadhila Mazanderani, Isabel Fletcher, Pablo Schyfter
Talking STS is a collection of interviews and accompanying reflections on the origins, the present and the future of the field referred to as Science and Technology Studies or Science, Technology and Society (STS). The volume assembles the thoughts and recollections of some of the leading figures in the making of this field. The occasion for producing the collection has been the fiftieth anniversary
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Ways of Knowing and Doing STS: Niki Vermeulen Talks with Wiebe Bijker Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Niki Vermeulen, Wiebe Bijker
It is a special moment in the history of STS. With the young discipline transitioning into a not so-young-field-anymore, there is plenty of reason for celebrations: defining groups are celebrating remarkable anniversaries and individual careers are celebrated when founding figures retire. These celebrations are also excellent moments for reflections on pasts, presents and futures of STS and the place
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Imagining Alternative and Better Worlds: Isabel Fletcher Talks with Adele E. Clarke Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Isabel Fletcher, Adele E. Clarke
In this interview, Adele Clarke and Isabel Fletcher discuss the different routes that led Clarke to science and technology studies (STS), the field’s increasing engagement with biomedical topics, and her perspectives on its character today. Clarke describes how women’s health activism and teaching feminist critiques of bioscience/biomedicine led her to participate in academic networks now known as
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Cracking the Crystal in STS: Marcelo Fetz Talks with Harry Collins Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-07-12 Marcelo Fetz, Harry Collins
In this interview, Harry Collins and Marcelo Fetz discuss Collins’ early work on the importance of tacit knowledge in laboratory research, the revolutionary spirit of early Science and Technology Studies (STS) research, and his concerns about its current intellectual decline which he sees as a result of the popularity of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approaches and an increasing focus on policy-relevant
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Residues: Rethinking Chemical Environments Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-06-28 Soraya Boudia, Angela N.H. Creager, Scott Frickel, Emmanuel Henry, Nathalie Jas, Carsten Reinhardt, Jody A. Roberts
This essay offers a new approach for conceptualizing the environmental impact of chemicals production, consumption, disposal, and regulation. Environmental protection regimes tend to be highly segmented according to place, media, substance, and effect. Existing scholarship often reflects this same segmentation, by focusing on a locality, specific chemical, social movement, or regulatory body. In turn
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Commentary: STS of the Underground Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Trevor Birkenholtz
Geographer Trevor Birkenholtz draws out major themes across the articles in the thematic collection "Engaging the Underground: An STS Field in Formation," with reference to cartographic and model production and representation, particularly in the ways that they render the landscapes partially knowable and contestable.
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Black Gold, White Power: Mapping Oil, Real Estate, and Racial Segregation in the Los Angeles Basin, 1900-1939 Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Daniel G. Cumming
In 1923, Southern California produced over twenty percent of the world’s oil. At the epicenter of an oil boom from 1892 to the 1930s, Los Angeles grew into the nation’s fifth largest city. By the end of the rush, it had also become one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. Historians have overlooked the relationship between industrialists drilling for oil and real estate developers
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Images of Marie Curie: How Reputational Entrepreneurs Shape Iconic Identities Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Lisa Alaimo, Lori Chambers, Antony Puddephatt
Marie Curie holds iconic status both within the scientific community and in the wider cultural imagination and collective memory. The first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize and the only woman to achieve such an honor twice, Curie is widely celebrated as a female pioneer in the sciences and is held up as a model for all, but particularly women, to emulate. She is revered not only as a ground-breaking