Showing papers in "Science, Technology, & Human Values in 2014"
TL;DR: In this paper, the importance of training ethical, socially conscious engineers has been discussed, but does US engineering education actually encourage neophytes to take seriously their professional responsibili...
Abstract: Much has been made of the importance of training ethical, socially conscious engineers, but does US engineering education actually encourage neophytes to take seriously their professional responsib...
342 citations
TL;DR: This paper argues for two alternatives to state-of-the-art medical research to turn patient knowledge into science: ethnographies of knowledge practices (how patients know) and the collection and making accessible of techniques (what patients know).
Abstract: Science and technology studies concerned with the study of lay influence on the sciences usually analyze either the political or the normative epistemological consequences of lay interference. Here I frame the relation between patients, knowledge, and the sciences by opening up the question: How can we articulate the knowledge that patients develop and use in their daily lives (patient knowledge) and make it transferable and useful to others, or, `turn it into science’? Elsewhere, patient knowledge is analyzed either as essentially different from or similar to medical knowledge. The category of experiential knowledge is vague and is used to encompass many types of experience, whereas the knowledge of the `expert patient’ may be assumed to have the shape of up-to-date medical information. This paper shows through a case study of people with severe lung disease that patient knowledge can be understood as a form of practical knowledge that patients use to translate medical and technical knowledge into someth...
147 citations
TL;DR: This article develops the analytical vocabulary of “seams” for studying heterogeneous, multi-infrastructural environments and examines overlaps among infrastructures and how actors work creatively with and across their seams.
Abstract: Understanding contemporary environments in the laboratory and elsewhere requires grappling conceptually with multiple, coexisting, nonconforming infrastructures which actors engage at the same time...
109 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how race has been configured in different practices and how race-based identities and technologies are entwined in various European settings, and suggest that race in Europe is best viewed as an absent presence, something that oscillates between reality and nonreality, which appears on the surface and then hides underground.
Abstract: In many European countries, the explicit discussion of race as a biological phenomenon has long been avoided. This has not meant that race has become obsolete or irrelevant all together. Rather, it is a slippery object that keeps shifting and changing. To understand its slippery nature, we suggest that race in Europe is best viewed as an absent presence, something that oscillates between reality and nonreality, which appears on the surface and then hides underground. In this special issue, we explore how race has been configured in different practices and how race-based identities and technologies are entwined in various European settings.
90 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that race is a topological object, an object that is spatially and temporally folded in distributed technologies of governance, and they examine a number of border management technologies through which both race and Europe are brought into being.
Abstract: Territorial borders just like other boundaries are involved in a politics of belonging, a politics of "us" and "them" Border management regimes are thus part of processes of othering In this article, we use the management of borders and populations in Europe as an empirical example to make a theoretical claim about race We introduce the notion of the phenotypic other to argue that race is a topological object, an object that is spatially and temporally folded in distributed technologies of governance To elaborate on these notions, we first examine a number of border management technologies through which both race and Europe are brought into being More specifically we focus on how various such technologies aimed at monitoring the movement of individuals together with the management of populations have come to play crucial roles in Europe Different border management regimes, we argue, do not only enact different versions of Europe but also different phenotypic others We then shift the focus from border regimes to internal practices of governance, examining forensic DNA databanks to unravel articulations of race in the traffic between databases and societies
84 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue against thinking of recent changes in science and technology as fundamentally neoliberal, and for thinking of them instead as reflecting a process of "economization" and argue that the policies that changed the organization of science in the United States included some that intervened in markets and others that expanded their reach.
Abstract: Recent scholarship in science, technology, and society has emphasized the neoliberal character of science today. This article draws on the history of US science and technology (S&T) policy to argue against thinking of recent changes in science as fundamentally neoliberal, and for thinking of them instead as reflecting a process of “economization.” The policies that changed the organization of science in the United States included some that intervened in markets and others that expanded their reach, and were promoted by some groups who were skeptical of free markets and others who embraced them. In both cases, however, new policies reflected (1) growing political concern with “the economy” and related abstractions (e.g., growth, productivity, balance of trade) and (2) a new understanding of S&T as inputs into a larger economic system that government could manipulate through policy. Understanding trends in US S&T policy as resulting from economization, not just neoliberalism, has implications for thinking a...
73 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a genealogy reveals that epistemic and technological determinism were embedded in the development idea from the very beginning, and also illustrates that the determinism has always been challenged by critical voices.
Abstract: Since the turn of the millennium, the major development agencies have been promoting “knowledge for development,” “ICT for development,” or the “knowledge economy” as new paradigms to prompt development in less-developed countries. These paradigms display an unconditional trust in the power of Western technology and scientific knowledge to trigger development—they taste of epistemic and technological determinism. This article probes, by means of a genealogy, how and when development cooperation began adhering to epistemic and technological determinism, and which forms this adhesion has taken over time. The genealogy shows, first, that knowledge and technology have always been integrally part of the very “development” idea since this idea was shaped during enlightenment. Second, while the genealogy reveals that epistemic and technological determinism were embedded in the development idea from the very beginning, it also illustrates that the determinism has always been challenged by critical voices.
48 citations
TL;DR: The historiography of race is usually framed by two discontinuities: the invention of race by European naturalists and anthropologists and the demise of racial typologies after World War II in favor of population-based studies of human diversity.
Abstract: The historiography of race is usually framed by two discontinuities: the invention of race by European naturalists and anthropologists, marked by Carl Linnaeus’s (1735) Systema naturae and the demi
44 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report on the practical and ethical consequences of the implementation and use of telecare devices for older people living at home in Spain and the United Kingdom, arguing that neither services nor users preexist the installation of the service: they are better described as produced along with it.
Abstract: This article reports on ethnographic research into the practical and ethical consequences of the implementation and use of telecare devices for older people living at home in Spain and the United Kingdom. Telecare services are said to allow the maintenance of their users’ autonomy through connectedness, relieving the isolation from which many older people suffer amid rising demands for care. However, engaging with Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature on “user configuration” and implementation processes, we argue here that neither services nor users preexist the installation of the service: they are better described as produced along with it. Moving beyond design and appropriation practices, our contribution stresses the importance of installations as specific moments where such emplacements take place. Using Etienne Souriau’s concept of instauration, we describe the ways in which, through installation work, telecare services “bring into existence” their very infrastructure of usership. Hence, both services and telecare users are effects of fulfilling the “felicity conditions” (technical, relational, and contractual) of an achieved installation.
44 citations
TL;DR: Context holds a significant place mediating the conceptual and the empirical in ethnography and has also become a significant part of science and technology studies since the early nineties as discussed by the authors, and it has become a modality of knowledge has been used in many fields.
Abstract: Context holds a significant place mediating the conceptual and the empirical in ethnography. This modality of knowledge has also become a significant part of science and technology studies since th...
38 citations
TL;DR: In recent years, there has been an intense debate about the concept of "biological" or "genetic citizenship" and the growing literature on this topic mostly refers to the importance of patients' assoc...
Abstract: In recent years, there has been an intense debate about the concept of “biological” or “genetic citizenship.” The growing literature on this topic mostly refers to the importance of patients’ assoc...
TL;DR: New caregiving techniques that accompany implantation are understood through neuropolitics, showing how parents are encouraged to engage in neuro-self-governance, and how the concept of neuroplasticity is used to cultural ends.
Abstract: This article provides an ethnographic account of pediatric cochlear implantation, revealing an important shift in the definition of deafness from a sensory loss to a neurological processing problem...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss personal names and genealogies in relation to other technologies of belonging, and argue that they are key elements of identification and personhood, embodied in the biosocial habitus much like other biomarkers.
Abstract: Because they are right under our nose, taken-for-granted, and essential to every person everywhere, personal names have often eluded the theoretical and analytical scrutiny they deserve. To what extent do naming practices exemplify or parallel the biopolitics of bodily inscriptions and markings such as tattoos, birthmarks, and presumed racial signatures? To what extent do names represent “technologies of the self” (Foucault 1988) in the broadest sense, as both means of domination and empowerment, facilitating collective surveillance and subjugation, and the individual fashioning of identity and subjectivity? Partly drawing upon indigenous contexts in the North American Arctic (Inuit and Yup’ik), this commentary discusses personal names and genealogies in relation to other technologies of belonging. Practices of naming, it is argued, are not only key elements of identification and personhood, embodied in the biosocial habitus much like other biomarkers, also they situate people in genealogies, social netwo...
TL;DR: In this article, a cross-case analysis of four collaborative research projects conducted in the Dutch Academic Collaborative Centres for Public Health (ACCPH) is presented, showing that the extended concept of hybrid management is useful to study the different accountabilities encountered in such settings.
Abstract: Researchers are increasingly expected to deliver “socially robust knowledge” that is not only scientifically reliable but also takes into account demands from societal actors. This article focuses on an empirical example where these additional criteria are explicitly organized into research settings. We investigate how the multiple “accountabilities” are managed in such “responsive research settings.” This article provides an empirical account of such an organizational format: the Dutch Academic Collaborative Centres for Public Health. We present a cross-case analysis of four collaborative research projects conducted within this context. We build on (and extend) Miller’s notion of “hybrid management.” The article shows that the extended concept of hybrid management is useful to study the different accountabilities encountered in such settings. We analyze how the collaboration developed and which conflicts or dilemmas arose. We then focus on the different hybrid management strategies used in the collaborat...
TL;DR: This essay argues that the predicaments of TCM are thoroughly modern and must be understood within the “Modern Constitution” in which the production and proliferation of asymmetries are both constitutive of and obscured by modern knowledge production.
Abstract: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is often considered an “experiential medicine.” As such, it is seen as in need of conceptual elevation by scientific experiments and theorization, which actualize...
TL;DR: The authors examines the foundation myths of Brazil in the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the relationship between these myths and governmental attitudes toward the hybridity of Northern and Southern ethnic and technoscientific entities.
Abstract: This article examines the foundation myths of Brazil in the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the relationship between these myths and governmental attitudes toward the hybridity of Northern and Southern ethnic and technoscientific entities. Based upon this examination, the article argues that it is important to consider both the wider temporal frames and the shifts and sedimentations that have formed current foundation myths and shaped their relation to science and technology. Postcolonial science technology studies theories illuminate aspects of this trajectory, but our analysis suggests a more complex scenario that involves internal political dynamics and the work of local intellectuals. We argue that the example of Brazilian social scientists should encourage scholars to go beyond the current focus on breaking the myths of technoscience and undertake mythmaking initiatives with wider societal resonances.
TL;DR: The United States has become an ideal marketplace for those seeking selective technologies that are illegal, inaccessible, or unavailable in their own countries as discussed by the authors, which is the case for many of the technologies we consider in this paper.
Abstract: The United States has become an ideal marketplace for those seeking selective technologies that are illegal, inaccessible, or unavailable in their own countries. Specifically, technologies such as ...
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of Tanzanian tea value chains takes a closer look at how sustainability, in the form of SustainabiliTea, is done by actors who did not participate in defining and standardizing the forms of sustainability with which they are meant to comply.
Abstract: Standards that codify sustainability, such as Ethical Trade, Fairtrade, Organic and Rainforest Alliance, have become a common means for value chain actors in the Global North to make statements about the values of their products and the practices of producers in the Global South. This case study of Tanzanian tea value chains takes a closer look at how sustainability, in the form of SustainabiliTea, is done by actors who did not participate in defining and standardizing the form of sustainability with which they are meant to comply. Based on data collected during a multisited ethnography, I explore the performative nature of sustainability standards. The analysis reveals sustainable projects, sustainable markets, sustainable farm management, and sustainable qualities. These multiple SustainabiliTeas work together to construct a single vision of SustainabiliTea, which is a means to sustain the enterprise. I argue that the use of standards to guide performances makes some technical and political stakes visible while rendering others invisible. By paying attention to the residual categories, the tensions between knowledge and materiality, and listening to those voices at the margins, we see what is at stake in the maintenance of SustainabiliTea: survival in the tea market.
TL;DR: The dichotomy between the conceptual and the empirical is part of common sense, yet its organizing force also extends to intellectual life more generally, including the disciplinary life of science as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The dichotomy between the conceptual and the empirical is part of common sense, yet its organizing force also extends to intellectual life more generally, including the disciplinary life of science...
TL;DR: The analysis of actor networks, the process of mobilizing alliances, and constructing networks is a common and worthwhile f... as mentioned in this paper, and the authors of this paper are among the first to discuss it.
Abstract: The process of translation has both an excluding and including character. The analysis of actor networks, the process of mobilizing alliances, and constructing networks is a common and worthwhile f ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a structured analysis of the varying functions that different kinds of values can adopt, as well as the value-related tensions and trade-offs they give rise to.
Abstract: The relevance of scientific knowledge for science and technology policy and regulation has led to a growing debate about the role of values. This article contributes to the clarification of what specific functions cognitive and noncognitive values adopt in knowledge generation and decisions, and what consequences the operation of values has for policy making and regulation. For our analysis, we differentiate between three different types of decision approaches, each of which shows a particular constellation of cognitive and noncognitive values. Our objectives are to present a structured analysis of the varying functions that different kinds of values can adopt, as well as the value-related tensions and trade-offs they give rise to. We argue that the operation of noncognitive values in scientific knowledge generation, policy, and regulatory decision making can be understood as an enabling factor, rather than a limiting one.
TL;DR: This paper explored how academics know when they are looking at something called "race" given that the term has an uneven history, and there is some disagreement about when the concept fully emerged, and how they know when to look at race.
Abstract: This essay explores how academics know when they are looking at something called “race.” Given that the term has an uneven history, there is some disagreement about when the concept fully emerged, ...
TL;DR: Science studies has long been concerned with the theoretical and methodological challenge of mess, the inevitable tendency of technoscientific objects and practices to spill beyond the neat analytic framework.
Abstract: Science studies has long been concerned with the theoretical and methodological challenge of mess—the inevitable tendency of technoscientific objects and practices to spill beyond the neat analytic...
TL;DR: In a special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values (STHV) as discussed by the authors, the questions addressed in this special issue differ from those inspired by Donna Haraway an...
Abstract: What is the “conventional sense” of disability, and how do the questions addressed in this special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values (STHV) differ from those inspired by Donna Haraway an...
TL;DR: The authors examines the political controversy in the United States surrounding a new process for the disposition of human remains, alkaline hydrolysis (AH), which uses a heated (sometime...
Abstract: This article examines the political controversy in the United States surrounding a new process for the disposition of human remains, alkaline hydrolysis (AH). AH technologies use a heated (sometime...
TL;DR: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Peruvian Andes ranked as a key international destination for those afflicted with one of the world's most deadly diseases, tuberculosis as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Peruvian Andes ranked as a key international destination for those afflicted with one of the world’s most deadly diseases, tuberculosis. Physicians, scientists, policy makers, and patients believed that high-elevation mountain climates worldwide would help cure the disease. Historical processes driving the creation of Andean health resorts, which are understudied in the historiography, uncover an important story in the history of tuberculosis, and also reveal how global health initiatives and disease treatment played out within the global South, where national forces and local environmental conditions influenced the trajectory of science and medicine. Jauja, Peru, became an internationally recognized health resort for tuberculosis treatment not only through science and medicine but also through national political integration campaigns, transportation initiatives, economic development agendas, social (race and class) relations, cultural perspectives o...
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic study of a translational cancer research institute in the United States is presented, where the authors propose calibration as a process that makes interdisciplinary collaboration without con...
Abstract: Based on an original ethnographic study of a translational cancer research institute in the United States, we propose calibration as a process that makes interdisciplinary collaboration without con...
TL;DR: A growing body of work has critically evaluated the contradictory role of Northern styles of science and technology for development, including the cultural assumptions embedded within them, and social theories have expanded to consider the ways that local practices shape knowledge and technologies in these settings as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The global South, that is, the region outside the Western Europe, North America, and the developed nations of Oceana and Asia, has been neglected by social scientists studying science, technology, and society (STS) issues. Since the end of the 1990s, however, a growing body of work has critically evaluated the contradictory role of Northern styles of science and technology for development, including the cultural assumptions embedded within them. Social theories have expanded to consider the ways that local practices shape knowledge and technologies in these settings. Such studies have, for instance, addressed debates ranging from the divide between laymen and scientists to the relationship between Northern and Indigenous
TL;DR: This article analyzes how Julian Huxley, Lancelot Hogben, and J. S. Haldane used the new insights into the genetics of heredity to argue against any biological foundations for antidemocratic ideologies, be it Nazism, Stalinism, or the British laissez-faire and class system.
Abstract: In this article, I am concerned with the public engagements of Julian Huxley, Lancelot Hogben, and J. B. S. Haldane. I analyze how they used the new insights into the genetics of heredity to argue ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors acknowledge the shifting definitions and uses of the conceptual and empirical in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and explore the con- con...
Abstract: It is the purpose of this special issue to acknowledge the shifting definitions and uses of the conceptual and empirical in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and to explore the con...