Anthropology and STS: Generative interfaces, multiple locations

In this multi-authored essay, nine anthropologists working in different parts of the world take part in a conversation about the interfaces between anthropology and STS (science and technology studies). Through this conversation, multiple interfaces emerge that are heterogeneously composed according to the languages, places, and arguments from where they emerge. The authors explore these multiple interfaces as sites where encounters are also sites of difference—where complex groupings, practices, topics, and analytical grammars overlap, and also exceed each other, composing irregular links in a conversation that produces connections without producing closure

Living in the Material World

My topic is materiality and how ideas on materiality from my field—STS, science and technology studies—might cross over into management and organisation studies. ‘Sociomateriality’ (Orlikowski and Scott 2008) is already an important topic in management and organisations, but I will try to widen the frame. We can start with technologies of the self, then turn to industry and technoscience, and finally explore an odd form of management which builds in the perspective I want to develop. The overall idea is to multiply our sense of the many different ways in which matter is interwined with us

CAK – Centre Alexandre-Koyré. Histoire des sciences et des techniques

Charlotte Bigg, chargée de recherche au CNRS Voir/savoir. Images et visualisations scientifiques Ce séminaire propose une introduction aux études visuelles des sciences. Partant d’un large éventail d’exemples tirés de l’histoire des sciences, des techniques et de la médecine ainsi que des STS (Science and technology studies), il constitue une initiation théorique et pratique aux approches visuelles à travers la lecture de textes fondateurs, d’interventions d’experts, de visites de collections..

Human geography and the hinterland: the case of Torsten Hägerstrand’s ‘belated’ recognition

Seeing Human Geography as a nexus of temporally oscillating concepts, this paper investigates the dissemination of scientific ideas with a focus on extra-scientific factors. While scientific progress is usually evaluated in terms of intellectual achievement of the individual researcher, geographers tend to forget about the external factors that tacitly yet critically contribute to knowledge production. While these externalities are well-documented in the natural sciences, social sciences have not yet seen comparable scrutiny. Using Torsten Hägerstrand’s rise to prominence as a concrete example, we explore this perspective in a social-science case – Human Geography. Applying an STS (Science and Technology Studies) approach, we depart from a model of science as socially-materially contingent, with special focus on three extra-scientific factors: community norms, materiality and the political climate. These factors are all important in order for knowledge to be disseminated into the hinterland of Human Geography. We conclude it is these types of conditions that in practice escape the relativism of representation

Wicked futures:meaning, matter and the sociology of the future

Sociologists and futurists have come to see that 'fabrications' of the future as entirely open to being remade in the present have become more difficult to sustain in a complex and contingent world. Rather, new and more nuanced conceptualizations of the future are required. To contribute to that task, I draw inspiration from Rittel and Webber's 1973 paper in which they analyze social problems as 'wicked problems' to explore how sociologists have found the future to be difficult and tricky, both conceptually and empirically and have sought to overcome those difficulties through various analytical strategies. I discuss the onto-epistemological status of the future in sociology, tracing major shifts in theorizing of the future and suggest that what makes the future so wicked - so difficult and pernicious - is that it is an 'entanglement of matter and meaning'. In doing so, I draw on insights from STS (science and technology studies) and other fields of inquiry to propose a new conceptual language in which to do the sociology of the future

A Science and Technology Studies approach to Critical Thinking in Biology

Science educators are tasked with the dual challenges of facilitating the learning of a massive amount of factual information as well as the development of critical thinking skills to organize, retrieve and apply that information. Often the demands of traditional curricula result in an emphasis on acquisition of information as a terminal learning outcome. Bethune College at York University offers first year students the opportunity to learn in a small group cohort under the direction of a science researcher. Twenty-five selected students were enrolled in BC. 1800: Sex, Lives and Mistaken Ideas. This seminar course was designed to facilitate critical thinking using an STS (Science and Technology Studies) approach that integrated the history, philosophy and social studies of biology. The interdisciplinary nature of the course required students to examine ideas and their effects on the development of biological concepts. Curriculum and evaluation elements will be described with practical examples. Student outcomes and course evaluations will be presented. Participants will be encouraged to consider and comment on how this approach might be used in their teaching

Praktyka laboratoryjna i warunki jej stabilności. Wokół stanowisk Pawła Zeidlera oraz Iana Hackinga

Artykuł przedstawia ujęcia nauki koncentrujące się na analizie praktyk laboratoryjnych. Chodzi o socjologię wiedzy naukowej, z której wyrastają studia nad nauką oraz technologią, a także o stanowisko polskiego filozofa, Pawła Zeidlera, który rozważa praktykę laboratoryjną chemii. Autorka zwraca uwagę na oryginalność stanowiska Zeidlera, wskazując jego zalety oraz słabości. Polemizując z Zeidlerem, proponuje ona alternatywną interpretację ujęcia Iana Hackinga, współtwórcy nurtu nowego eksperymentalizmu, który podejmuje problem stabilności nauk laboratoryjnych.The article presents the specificity of standpoints in which laboratory, instrumental and practical aspect of science is strongly underlined. This is mainly Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (STS, Science and Technology Studies), but also the interesting conception of a Polish philosopher, Paweł Zeidler, who analyses laboratory practice of chemistry. The text indicates the originality of Zeidler’s view, its merits and weak points. The author polemicizes with Zeidler and proposes an alternative interpretation of Ian Hacking’s perspective, who describes the roots of stability of laboratory practice

Making Materials Matter—A Contribution to a Sociomaterial Perspective on Work Environment

This paper aims to discuss the implications of adopting an STS (science and technology studies)- based conceptualization of the psychosocial work environment. We problematize how work environment research presently divides elements of working conditions into separate physical and psychosocial dimensions. Based on actor network theory, a currently dominant perspective in the field of STS, we discuss the concept of sociomaterial work environment. An ANT perspective on work environment is relevant and timely, we argue, first and foremost because more entities are embraced in the analyses. We argue that the ANT perspective leads to a more nuanced understanding of the work environment where it is not a set of predefined categories that is the focus of interest, but rather the work environment as multiple locally performed aspects of agency, translation, and collectively constructed reality. This perspective on work environment, we argue, addresses pivotal issues raised in the work environment debate during the last ten years, for instance of how the work environment as a concept saliently belongs to a social democratic Scandinavian agenda in which the singular employee in a work environment context is predominantly seen as a victim. This trope, which was peaking in the 1970s, is increasingly becoming obsolete in a changing economy with still more flexible jobs. The contribution of this paper is to provide a presentation and a discussion of the potentials and pitfalls provided by a shift toward a sociomaterial work environment perspective, as well as an empirical exemplification of a sociomaterial approach to work environment assessment