STS (Anthropology)

Special Issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews on 'Computational Picturing'

by Annamaria Carusi

Guest edited by Annamaria Carusi, Aud Sissel Hoel and Timothy Webmoor

Visual tools and instruments have been a focal point of historical, social and cognitive studies of science for quite... more Visual tools and instruments have been a focal point of historical, social and cognitive studies of science for quite some time, and even more so with the onset of the digital era. Profound questions about the nature of scientific knowledge are posed by the plethora of digital images and computational visualizations to be found in scientific domains. Currently, we are seeing the emergence of a new generation of computational and digital tools which are fast becoming entrenched in all research domains across science, social science and the humanities, and which are even constitutive of new cross-cutting domains. It remains unclear which distinctions become important now that the predominant form of picturing is computational or in what specific ways this makes a difference.
This special issue consists of a collection of papers that address different aspects of the methodological and theoretical questions raised by computational forms of picturing.

Localizing Climate Change: A Multi-Sited Approach

by Werner Krauss

Falzon, Marc (ed) Multi-Sited Ethnography Ashgate Publishers, 2009, pp 149-165
DRAFT ONLY Falzon, Marc (ed) Multi-Sited Ethnography Ashgate Publishers, 2009, pp 149-165
DRAFT ONLY

Disposed to Unsustainability?

by Ingmar Lippert

published as I. Lippert. Disposed to unsustainability? ecological modernisation as a techno-science enterprise with conflicting normative orientations. In A. Bammé, G. Getzinger, and B. Wieser, editors, Yearbook 2009 of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, pages 275–290. Profil, München, 2010.

How to Map and Explain the Diversity of Research Programs in the Field of Science Studies

by Andrey Kozhanov

report for Society of Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, 2011.
This project is in progress...

Carbon classified? Unpacking heterogeneous relations inscribed into corporate carbon emissions

by Ingmar Lippert

draft only; to be published summer 2012 as I. Lippert. Carbon classified? Unpacking heterogeneous relations inscribed into corporate carbon emissions. ephemera, 12(1), 2012.

How does a corporation know it emits carbon? Acquiring such knowledge starts with the classification of... more How does a corporation know it emits carbon? Acquiring such knowledge starts with the classification of environmentally relevant consumption information. This paper visits the corporate location at which this underlying element for their knowledge is assembled to give rise to carbon emissions. Using an Actor- network theory (ANT) framework, the aim is to investigate the actors who bring together the elements needed to classify their carbon emission sources and unpack the heterogeneous relations drawn on. Based on an ethnographic study of corporate agents of ecological modernisation over a period of 13 months, this paper provides an exploration of three cases of enacting classification. Drawing on Actor-Network theory, we problematise the silencing of a range of possible modalities of consumption facts and point to the ontological ethics involved in such performances. In a context of global warming and corporations construing themselves as able and suitable to manage their emissions, and, additionally, given that the construction of carbon emissions has performative consequences, the underlying practices need to be declassified, i.e. opened for public scrutiny. Hence the paper concludes by arguing for a collective engagement with the ontological politics of carbon.

In praise of the parasite: The dark organisational theory of Michel Serres

by Steve Brown

Draft pre-publication version of Brown, S.D. (2012) In praise of the parasite. Informática na educação: teoria e prática, in press

Michel Serres’ concept of ‘the parasite’ provides for a sustained rethinking of basic categories in social science. As... more Michel Serres’ concept of ‘the parasite’ provides for a sustained rethinking of basic categories in social science. As an example of post-Kantian philosophy, Serres critiques the classical logic of identity as based on a ‘third man’ argument. This third space – personified as the parasite – is essential to thinking communication and transformation in systems. Parasitism operates through the logic of taking without giving or ‘abuse value’. But the parasite nevertheless makes exchange possible by creating connections between otherwise incommensurable forms of ordering. Human relations oscillate through periods of disequilibrium, often involving scapegoating and exclusion, as parasitic cascades emerge. However, parasites in the form of jokers and quasi-objects create powerful mechanisms for creating collectivity and individuality. The ‘dark organizational theory’ of Serres allows for adequate descriptions of these processes.

Haptic Creativity and the Mid-embodiments of Experimental Life (with Joseph Dumit)

by Natasha Myers

PORTER and DEMERITT (2012) Flood risk management mapping and planning - the institutional politics of decision-support in England

by James Porter

PORTER et al (2012) On being a (modern) scientist - Risks of engaging the public

by James Porter

PORTER (2012) - Better the devil you know? Collaborative tensions in making neuroscience work - LABTEC Annual Conference

by James Porter

Food, Drugs and TV: The Social Study of Corporate Science

by Bart Penders

Schleifer, D. & Penders, B. (2011) Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 31 (6): 431-434.

Porter (2009) Lost in Translation - managing the 'risk' of flooding - the story of consistency and flood risk mapping

by James Porter

Porter (2010) The Extreme Flood Outline - Co-Producing Flood Risk Mapping and Spatial Planning in England (PhD Thesis)

by James Porter

Porter (2012) The Stuff of Politics? A Book Review of Braun and Whatmore's Political Matter

by James Porter

Critical Neuroscience: Linking Neuroscience and Society Through Critical Practice

by Jan Slaby

Proposal for a Critical Neuroscience

by Jan Slaby

Co-authored with Suparna Choudhury;
published in Choudhury, S./Slaby, J. (eds. 2012), Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 29-51.

Foundational chapter of Critical Neuroscience volume. We propose a dual strategy: on the one hand, a constructive... more Foundational chapter of Critical Neuroscience volume. We propose a dual strategy: on the one hand, a constructive approach to enrich neuroscience research perspectives by assembling construals of phenomena captured in the full fabric of meaningful relations that contribute to their significance as focal “matters of concern”—in effect a call to adopt a hands-on approach that embeds and involves the critic within interdisciplinary research. On the other hand, we formulate a proposal for a multi-dimensional critical investigation of neuroscience-in-context that reckons with various biases, ideological influences, interest-driven “overclaim,” skewed representations of research findings by practitioners and the media, tacit schemes and frames of judgment that distort rather than illuminate relevant phenomena, institutional “pathologies” such as colonizing tendencies of research agendas and the construction and politically problematic deployment of expert knowledge to serve specific—for example corporate—interests.

Restaurar el Orden del Telecuidado: Prácticas de Reparación y la Relación con los “Monstruos Organizacionales”

by Tomás Sánchez Criado

Pesquisas e Práticas Psicossociais 6(2): 319-337, agosto/dezembro 2011 [ISSN: 1809 - 8908]

El cuidado de las personas mayores ha cambiado enormemente en las sociedades postindustriales, como así atestigua el... more El cuidado de las personas mayores ha cambiado enormemente en las sociedades postindustriales, como así atestigua el creciente uso de tecnologías de la información para ello. De cara a observar qué manera de cuidar implican estas nuevas configuraciones, en este texto me acercaré etnográficamente a las prácticas de reparación que llevan a cabo los técnicos de un servicio de teleasistencia para personas mayores en Madrid (España). Siguiendo las recomendaciones de la “sociología de la desviación” y la “sociología de la reparación y el mantenimiento”, el interés de observar los modos en los que en estos servicios se lidia con diferentes “monstruos organizacionales” (aquellas configuraciones extrañas para los servicios) nos permitiría tener una definición práctica de cuáles son los órdenes que promueven de facto. El análisis del caso me permitirá detallar el importante trabajo de los técnicos como una constante “restauración” (por emplear un término usado recientemente por Latour) de un particular “arreglo del cuidado”, que definiré a partir de sus prácticas.

Disciplining microbes in the implementation of US Federal Organic Standards

by Mrill Ingram

Extended Carbon Cognition as a Machine

by Ingmar Lippert

published as: I. Lippert. Extended carbon cognition as a machine. Computational Culture, 1(1), 2011.

By way of exploring ethnographic data on carbon construction practices by agents of ecological modernisation in a... more By way of exploring ethnographic data on carbon construction practices by agents of ecological modernisation in a multinational corporation, this paper seeks to problematise the distributed and heterogeneous intelligence assembled by human and non-humans to make intelligible their carbon footprint.
Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork at a leading multinational in the financial services sector over a period of more than 12 months, I focus on everyday work practices as taking place in a capitalist context. It is through practical work that the presences of carbon emissions are imagined and brought into being. Thus, carbon emerges as co-constituted by thought. I will focus on instances in which the corporate machinery, i.e. automated thought, had to be supplemented by immediate human practices of 1) thinking themselves, 2) organising materials to think through and 3) ordering others to think. At another layer of analysis, I am to scrutinise carbon construction practices through the tension between creatively thinking / envisioning – and calculating / number crunching. Tracing members' practices allows to reconstruct how their usage of dichotomies renders carbon emissions intelligible.
As a result of this analysis carbon accounting emerges as enabled through an extended system of cognition. The paper concludes by tentatively suggesting a view on this machinery as co-constituting a wider – to borrow Guattari's term – Universe: A Universe of references to carbon.
Following these relations of thinking allows to question the conceptualisations of the actors involved and how their practical interactions render carbon, nature and our society (un)sustainable. This, I hope, provides a chance to better conceptualise individuals, their social and material contexts, and through that, corresponding room for manoevre.

First we built, now we buy: A sociological case study of enterprise resource planning systems in higher education

by Nicholas Rowland