scholarly journals It’s Important to Go to the Laboratory: Malte Ziewitz Talks with Michael Lynch

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Ziewitz ◽  
Michael Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Blow Up ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
Origin Stories

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 stories in the field; the role of ethnomethodology in his thinking; the early days of laboratory studies; why “turns” and “waves” might better be called “spins”; what he learned from David Edge; why we should be skeptical of the presumption that STS enhances the democratization of science; and why it might be time to “blow up STS”––an appealing idea that Malte Ziewitz takes up in his reflection following the interview.

scholarly journals The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies

2017 ◽  
pp. 295-296
Author(s):  
Andrés Aybar
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Studies Of Science

El constante avance de los diversos campos científicos a nivel mundial genera nuevas necesidades y preocupaciones, dentro de ellas también en el quehacer científico social. En buena parte de es en lo que se encuentra enmarcado en este presente handbook, publicado hace ya varios años por el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT por sus siglas en inglés), bajo el patrocinio de la Society for Social Studies of Science o 4S como mejor se le conoce, en comparación con el desarrollo de las dos anteriores versiones podemos ver en este libro u campo mucho mejor definido tanto en el sentido teórico como empírico. Se encuentra compuesto por 38 artículos de investigadores reconocidos en cada uno de los temas en cuestión. Lamentablemente, no podemos aquí reseñar todas las contribuciones de modo que en honor a la brevedad, analizaremos los grandes bloques bajo los cuales ha sido dividido este libro.

scholarly journals Symmetry as a Guide to Post-truth Times: A Response to Lynch

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-411
Author(s):  
Steve Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Truth Condition ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Symmetry Principle ◽  
Technology Studies

Abstract William Lynch has provided an informed and probing critique of my embrace of the post-truth condition, which he understands correctly as an extension of the normative project of social epistemology. This article roughly tracks the order of Lynch’s paper, beginning with the vexed role of the ‘normative’ in Science and Technology Studies, which originally triggered my version of social epistemology 35 years ago and has been guided by the field’s ‘symmetry principle’. Here the pejorative use of ‘populism’ to mean democracy is highlighted as a failure of symmetry. Finally, after rejecting Lynch’s appeal to a hybrid Marxian–Darwinism, Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes are contrasted en route to what I have called ‘quantum epistemology’.

scholarly journals Discursive Contextures of Science: Euro/West-Centrism and Science and Technology Studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Embryonic Stem ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Knowledge And Practice

Science and Technology Studies (STS) by the very act of showing the multiplicity, contingency, and context-dependence of scientific knowledge and practice, provincialized modern science. Postcolonial interventions within STS have pursued this goal even further. Nevertheless, Euro/West-centrism continues to inflect not only scientific practices and lay imaginaries, but also sociological and historical analyses of sciences. In this article, drawing on my own training within STS – first under J.P.S. Uberoi, who was concerned with structuralist analysis of modernity and science, and thereafter under Andy Pickering, when we focused on material agency and temporal emergence and extensively engaged with Actor Network Theory - I emphasize the continuing role of Euro/West-centric discourses in defining the “self” and the “other” and in impacting epistemological and ontological interventions. More broadly, building on a concept of Michael Lynch’s, I call for excavation and analysis of discursive contextures of sciences. In the second section of the article, through a brief analysis of embryonic stem cell therapy in a clinic in Delhi, I show how with shifting transnational landscape of technoscience certain discursive contextures are being “deterritorialized” and left “stuttering.”

scholarly journals Genealogies and Futures of Queer STS: Issues in Theory, Method, and Institutionalization

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Molldrem ◽  
Mitali Thakor
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Queer Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
History Of Sexuality ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Academic Practice ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
History Of

What is Queer STS, and what is new about it? In this “News in Focus” piece we situate recent efforts by various STS scholars to tinker and play with the intersections of queer studies and social studies of science and technology within a longer history of sexuality studies. We also narrate several critical new developments in academic collaborations in this growing subfield, from workshops to conference roundtables, and attempt to further develop Queer STS theory and praxis while negotiating the role of this nascent sphere of academic practice.

scholarly journals Legal Pluralism and Science and Technology Studies: Exploring Sources of the Legal Pluriverse

2022 ◽  
pp. 016224392110696
Author(s):  
Bertram Turner ◽  
Melanie G. Wiber
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Technological Transformation ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
Normative Order

In introducing the contributions to this special section, we explore the links between social and juridical concepts of normativity and science and technology. We follow the Legal Pluralism challenge to the notion of state law as the sole source of normative order and point to how technological transformation creates a pluralistic legal universe that takes on new shapes under conditions of globalization. We promote a science and technology studies (STS)-inspired reworking of Legal Pluralism and suggest expanding the portfolio of legally effective regimes of ordering to include the normativity generated by materiality and technology. This normativity is amply demonstrated in the case studies included in the papers which make up this special section. We conclude that the inclusion of approaches developed in STS research helps analytically to overcome what we view as an incomplete law project, one unable to deal with the technicized lifeworlds of a global modernity. The contributions to this special section illustrate that technomaterial change cannot be understood without recognition of the role of normative impacts, and conversely, the legal pluriverse cannot be understood without recognition of the normative role of techno-material arrangements.

scholarly journals Reimagining the Big Data assemblage

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395171881819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Carter
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
Considerable Success

Recent work on Big Data and analytics reveals a tension between analyzing the role of emerging objects and processes in existing systems and using those same objects and processes to create new and purposeful forms of action. While the field of science and technology studies has had considerable success in pursuing the former goal, as Halford and Savage argue, there is an ongoing need to discover or invent ways to “do Big Data analytics differently.” In this commentary, I suggest that attempts to produce new ways of working with Big Data and analytics might be hindered by how science and technology studies-influenced scholars have conceptualized assemblages. While these scholars have foregrounded objects’ relations within existing assemblages, new materialist philosophers draw attention to properties of objects that transcend those relations and might indicate opportunities for more creative or generative uses of Big Data and analytics.

scholarly journals Democratizando a ciência no cenário internacional: um debate sobre conceito de comunidades epistêmicas e sua perspectiva da ciência na política internacional | Democratizing science on the international scene: a debate on the concept of epistemic communities and its perspective of science in international politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Aguilar Gayard
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
Technology Governance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Engagement In Science ◽  
National Perspective

Resumo O artigo retoma os debates e premissas sobre a democratização da governança em ciência e tecnologia, e os compara com a perspectiva da ciência predominante no conceito de comunidades epistêmicas no campo das relações internacionais. Ressalta os diferentes entendimentos sobre o binômio “ciência e tecnologia” nas abordagens debatidas. A revisão e comparação entre perspectivas da ciência aportadas pelos estudos sociais da ciência e tecnologia e pelas relações internacionais busca contribuir com o debate da democratização e engajamento público em ciência e tecnologia para além de uma perspectiva nacional. Conclui-se pela necessidade de integrar perspectivas e debates contemporâneos sobre uma produção de conhecimento heterogênea e múltipla na análise do conhecimento nas relações internacionais.Palavras-chave: Governança em C&T; Democratização; Comunidades Epistêmicas (Relações Internacionais).Abstract This article explores the debates around calls and experiments of democratization in science and technology governance, and compares them with the perspective of science embedded in the concept of epistemic communities, as employed by International Relations theories. It emphasizes the different understandings about "Science and Technology" in each of these approaches. The review and comparison between perspectives of science provided by the Social Studies of Science and Technology and International Relations seeks to contribute to the debate of democratization and public engagement in science and technology beyond a national perspective. The article concludes by pointing to the necessity of recognizing contemporary perspectives of knowledge, as a heterogeneous field of action composed by multiple actors and networks, for an improved analysis of the role of knowledge in international politics.Keywords: Governance in S&T; Democratization; Epistemic Communities (International Relations).

scholarly journals Theorizing power in political ecology: the 'where' of power in resource governance projects

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Ahlborg ◽  
Andrea J Nightingale
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Rural Electrification ◽  
Societal Change ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Social And Economic Development

Power and politics have been central topics from the early days of Political Ecology. There are different and sometimes conflicting conceptualizations of power in this field that portray power alternatively as a resource, personal attribute or relation. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizations of power by probing contesting views regarding its role in societal change and by presenting a specific conceptualization of power, one which draws on political ecology and sociotechnical approaches in science and technology studies. We review how power has been conceptualized in the political ecology field and identify three trends that shaped current discussions. We then develop our conceptual discussion and ask explicitly where power emerges in processes of resource governance projects. We identify four locations that we illustrate empirically through an example of rural electrification in Tanzania that aimed at catalyzing social and economic development by providing renewable energy-based electricity services. Our analysis supports the argument that power is relational and productive, and it draws on science and technology studies to bring to the fore the critical role of non-human elements in co-constitution of society – technology – nature. This leads us to see the exercise of power as having contradictory and ambiguous effects. We conclude that by exploring the tension between human agency and constitutive power, we keep the politics alive throughout the analysis and are able to show why intentional choices and actions really matter for how resource governance projects play out in everyday life.

Data Management and Data Sharing in Science and Technology Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Maienschein ◽  
John N. Parker ◽  
Manfred Laubichler ◽  
Edward J. Hackett
Keyword(s):  
Data Sharing ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Science Association

This paper presents reports on discussions among an international group of science and technology studies (STS) scholars who convened at the US National Science Foundation (January 2015) to think about data sharing and open STS. The first report, which reflects discussions among members of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), relates the potential benefits of data sharing and open science for STS. The second report, which reflects discussions among scholars from many professional STS societies (i.e., European Association for the Study of Science and Technology [ EASST], 4S, Society for the History of Technology [ SHOT], History of Science Society [ HSS], and Philosophy of Science Association [ PSA]), focuses on practical and conceptual issues related to managing, storing, and curating STS data. As is the case for all reports of such open discussions, a scholar’s presence at the meeting does not necessarily mean that they agree with all aspects of the text to follow.

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