Taking the trouble: science, technology and security studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledge practices, have come to populate international relations and security politics. Many critical security scholars are engaging theoretical resources from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to make sense of things as diverse as fake news, climate change, financial surveillance, digital images and autonomous targeting systems. This Special Issue unpacks the core challenges and benefits we see when engaging with STS to approach the entanglements of science, technology and (in)security. Embracing the notion of trouble, this introduction draws upon Haraway and Butler, arguing for the need to stay close to the troubles that new research objects pose to the study of security. Taking the trouble can thus be understood as an ethos that makes us open to new research avenues and to the importance of being attentive to how relations of power and emancipation can be established in our research processes. The focus of both the introduction and the Special Issue is on how STS resources might be mobilised. Overall, this Special Issue offers further conceptual, empirical and methodological inputs to the ongoing discussion about the value of STS for the study of security politics.