Study Of Technology Research Articles

Making workable knowledge for asylum decisions: on tinkering with country of origin information

ABSTRACT As the number of asylum seekers grew, and flight stories became more complex, many Western governments deployed national research units, tasked with producing reliable Country of Origin Information (COI) to assist officials, judges and policy-makers in decision-making. Building on ethnographic research at Staatendokumentation, the COI unit at the Austrian Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, the paper argues that country research practices can best be understood as ‘tinkering’ – e.g. making use of know-how, equipment, material sources at disposal to produce workable COI in conditions of uncertainty. The concept of tinkering is derived from science and technology studies (STS) and brings into view how the research professionals cobble together a workable version of reality with the methodologies and materials at hand. Moreover, it highlights how country research involves continuous modification and adjustments to satisfy the needs of the unwitting case officer as the end-user of COI reports. Finally, using insights from feminist science and technology studies, the paper shows how country experts foster care for some things – i.e. the workload of case officers – at the expense of others – i.e. the experience of the asylum seeker.

Migration information infrastructures: power, control and responsibility at a new frontier of migration research

ABSTRACT The nature and production of migration statistics are in flux. State bureaucracies are no longer the primary source of migration data. Instead, there are a myriad unofficial data sources and processing collaborations which produce migration and mobility data as a by-product of both commercial and governmental processes. This has implications both for international processes of migration assessment and control, and for states’ domestic policies with respect to migrants. This paper brings together migration studies with Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature to take stock of these new data sources’ theoretical and empirical implications for both migrants and the links between migration and broader social processes. We identify migration information infrastructures: configurations of data assemblages which involve private and public sector actors, where data originally collected for one purpose (billing customers, sharing social information, sensing environmental change) become repurposed as migration statistics. We explore the implications of such migration information infrastructures for migration researchers: what are the entanglements that such infrastructures bring with them, and what do they mean for the ethics and practicalities of doing migration research?

Emergent Normativity: Communities of Practice, Technology, and Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

Abstract Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) are the subject of considerable international debate turning around the extent to which humans remain in control over using force. But what is precisely at stake is less clear as stakeholders have different perspectives on the technologies that animate LAWS. Such differences matter because they shape the substance of the debate, which regulatory options are put on the table, and also normativity on LAWS in the sense of understandings of appropriateness. To understand this process, I draw on practice theories, science and technology studies (STS), and critical norm research. I argue that a constellation of communities of practice (CoPs) shapes the public debate about LAWS and focus on three of these CoPs: diplomats, weapon manufacturers, and journalists. Actors in these CoPs discursively perform practices of boundary-work, in the STS sense, to shape understandings of technologies at the heart of LAWS: automation, autonomy, and AI. I analyze these dynamics empirically in two steps: first, by offering a general-level analysis of practices of boundary-work performed by diplomats at the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS from 2017 to 2022; and second, through examining such practices performed by weapon manufacturers and journalists in relation to the use of loitering munitions, a particular type of LAWS, in the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020).

Energy transitions research: An assessment methodology

AbstractMarket rules, changes in regulations for users and producers, technological innovation and economic development are important factors shaping energy transitions. Therefore, explaining energy transitions requires a multidisciplinary insight to investigate these factors. The study of energy transitions faces an analytical and methodological challenge, particularly in communicating trends shaping the energy systems in developing economies. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these disciplines nor proposing how they can be combined. In this sense, this paper proposes a new and simple methodological path to assess variables and theories. It conceptualizes energy transitions as a co-evolution of two types of systems: system innovation with its roots in evolutionary, institutional economics, science and technology studies (STS); and energy systems with its roots in neoclassical and evolutionary economics. From how to conduct a systematic literature review, to how best integrate theories and the analytical framework in which key questions can be answered, the paper elevates the role of political science, as policies play a prominent role in shaping energy transitions. This paper responds to those who have pointed out that the political economy of energy transitions is a vastly understudied area.

A network ethnography of international large-scale assessment contracting: scientific knowledge as messy, provisional, complex, and subjective

ABSTRACT While methodologies are often presented as standardised procedures which, under specified conditions, should lead to the same conclusions, this case study presents the complex and deeply personal process of research (Addey and Piattoeva 2022). We analyse our application of network ethnography – an approach presented by Ball (2016) – to the study of contractors developing international large-scale assessments, exploring how we, as scholars, become with our methodology and navigate the ‘messiness’ of research (Law 2004). Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to understand the constitutive role of methodology and performativity of knowledge-making (Law and Singleton 2013, Rimpiläinen 2015), we show how methodological decisions construct what is studied and ourselves. Finally, we discuss challenges of visual representation, applying Galloway’s (2011) ‘conversion rules’ to examine what was unrepresented – or unrepresentable. This paper shows the complex, subjective, and provisional nature of knowledge, theorising ‘heterogeneity and variation’ (Law 2004) as an inherent part of methodological application.

Resisting Material Binaries: Unpacking persisting dichotomies of building materials in Central Africa

The current discourse on African architecture is strongly influenced by social design—a practice for which architecture holds an important role in addressing complex societal questions and problems. The use of “alternative” building materials, as opposed to industrial materials like concrete or steel, is very central within this discourse. However, as this article argues, this strong binary approach to building materials is heavily influenced by colonial and postcolonial logic. To understand this continuity, I will trace some path dependencies visible in the Central African region from the colonial period to the present. In the first section, the material preferences of a Belgian architecture firm working in Rwanda in 2012 are related to the binaries of the architecture firms operating in this region in the 1970s and 1980s. In the second section, I discuss how the strong distinction between so-called “local” and “modern” materials is a remnant of the colonial period. Through an in-depth analysis of the shifting valuations of cement and burnt lime in Central Africa, the article aims to make these colonial categories feel less natural. Building on post-colonial science and technology studies (STS) scholarship, the conclusion proposes an alternative to binary thinking—a conscious material choice that tries to understand building materials as situated processes, allowing to go beyond the industry-driven denominators by which we currently value our building materials.

Organizational change of synthetic biology research: Emerging initiatives advancing a bottom-up approach

Bottom-up Synthetic Biology (buSynBio) is an approach focused on the artificial making of minimal functional biosynthetic systems by recombining existent biochemical modules or manufacturing them from scratch. Over the last decade, this emerging orientation has gained new momentum with the development of new bioengineering tools, theories, and technologies. Despite the growing acceptance of buSynBio, few studies have dedicated attention to the analysis of its organizational aspects. This article offers the first systematic investigation of emerging research initiatives in buSynBio and their meaning to bioengineering research. Our analysis is based on a multi-method qualitative study, including expert literature review, bibliometric research and a documentary analysis of online materials such as reports and project descriptions available in official grant data repositories. Our study found that publications of specialized articles on “bottom-up synthetic biology” have increased, both in absolute numbers and normalized to total number of publications. We show how that might be enabled by novel mechanisms of organization that reposition material, intellectual and political resources in synthetic biology. Drawing on theoretical analyses within Science and Technology Studies (STS), we examine 14 research initiatives in 5 selected countries (Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands, and Switzerland). The bottom-up approach is supported by a variety of “tentative regimes” of scientific governance in different stages of consolidation, but holding in common the establishment of novel basic research in Chemistry, Biology, Engineering and Physics. The study aims to contribute to social science research in synthetic biology by shedding light on the implications of buSynBio as trend driving the current organizational change of bioengineering research.

The Janus Face of Cosmopolitics in advance

Scholars in multispecies ethnography, the ontological turn, new materialisms, science and technology studies (STS), assemblage urbanism and other movements within the posthumanities broadly considered often treat cosmopolitics, initially proposed by Isabelle Stengers and subsequently taken up by Bruno Latour, as a single coherent concept. However, Stengers’s cosmopolitics differs considerably from Latour’s. The difference is most clearly visible in their contrasting positions on the concept of universality. Even though their divergence on universality could be considered a minor philosophical dispute among intellectual allies, it should not be underestimated. It determines what sort of political practice each of these philosophers envisions with cosmopolitics. Their visions of political practice are substantially different. This article will examine Latour’s and Stengers’s diverging positions on universality, delineate the two types of cosmopolitics, and, finally, analyze what sort of political practice each of these cosmopolitics implies.

Dirt Jumps are Matter Carefully Placed, Maintained, and Governed

Dirt Jumps are Matter Carefully Placed, Maintained, and Governed

Masking (Not Masking) Up: An STS Visual-Intersectional Approach to Understanding Publics and Science in Times of Rapid Change

In this paper we argue that a visual-intersectional approach can advance the field of science and technology studies (STS). Although there is a small but important body of work using visual methods in STS, it has rarely incorporated intersectional approaches. We use visual imagery about mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to illustrate the potential power of a visual-intersectional approach in STS. We chose masks for three reasons. First, debates about mask-wearing were rich with visual imagery, from home-made signs posted in homes and businesses to professionally designed and printed imagery circulated by public health agencies. Second, recommendations about face coverings outside of healthcare settings changed dramatically in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing an opportunity to analyze how rapidly changing scientific recommendations were debated in the public sphere. Finally, as masks entered the public sphere, they quickly became evocative technologies, deeply imbued with cultural and political meanings. By focusing on signs about masks in the United States, we demonstrate how integrating visual methods of data collection and an intersectional, visual analytical lens can strengthen STS by developing deeper understandings of (a) publics and science in times of uncertainty, (b) public health as a distinct form of scientific expertise, and (c) the role of humor and place-specific messaging in science. We close with analytic priorities for future research on mask use that could advance STS theories of the collective construction of scientific knowledge and productively inform the development of public health interventions.

Encountering Innovation, Countering Innovation

What could be gained by putting science and technology studies (STS) in conversation with innovation studies (IS)? These distinct fields have shared people over decades, as they build concepts, careers, institutions, and even nations. I review how this collection offers accounts of how STS and IS have been practiced in different times and locations: resisting underdevelopment, Western and middle-class assumptions about progress, or technology-centric policy. I argue, however, that it is critical to clarify the difference between innovation as an analytic and as an emic and ideological category. Neither STS nor IS should take for granted the ways political economy, class relations, racialization and gendering, and even national(ist) ideologies shape what counts as desirable forms of newness, what newness ought to be contained or criminalized, and the hierarchies of socio-technical transformation that emerge out of that. I offer three examples: San Diego’s “smart streetlights” program where “innovation” as an ideology devalues or erases the creativity and knowledge already manifest among residents; Amazon® Mechanical Turk worker advocacy and the limits of doing scholarship with policy relevance when workers do not have organized power; and mid-twentieth-century Iran, where I show what IBM® throwing computers into the ocean can tell us about innovation as a form of enclosure, repression, empire, and waste of collective resources and knowledge.

A Tale of Two Perspectives on Innovation and Global Equity

Both science and technology studies (STS) and innovation studies (IS) see great promise for technology to address global inequality, but they view it quite differently. This article compares the two approaches and examines whether and how they might learn from one another to achieve social equity and justice. To do this, I focus on the case of menstrual health innovation in India, an intervention highly praised as a clear example of potentially transformative “inclusive innovation.” The article argues that IS would benefit from understanding innovation as a sociotechnical system and taking the political dimensions seriously. Meanwhile, we STS scholars should learn to translate our grassroots-based, locally-sensitive solutions to policymakers oriented towards scalability.

Dissolving Boundaries in the Policy System

Based on personal experiences with science policy advice, this paper argues that science and technology studies (STS) would benefit from developing closer collaboration and collegial links with innovations studies (IS). When it comes to achieving impact outside our academic circles, disciplinary boundaries do not seem very relevant. Rather, it would be preferential if our contributions were based on systematic interaction with neighbouring fields – and if our relations with those fields were based on strong networks of collaboration.

Science and Technology Study Tools for Education on Digitality and Digital Technologies

This essay offers several tools from various science and technology studies (STS) branches, for the education on and with digital technologies and digitality. Emblematic STS works that have researched the digital are first discussed, followed by a brief review of the main theories and concepts that have been applied for this purpose. The paper is then concluded with a synthesis of relevant STS understandings to study the digital, in addition to a set of teaching elements for its education and some applicable lessons for a critical pedagogy on this issue.

Alignment Work and Epistemic Cultures

This article closes the special issue Alignment Work for the Movement of Knowledge. It argues that the concept of alignment work, through making it possible to think about collaborations of different epistemic cultures, provides a useful addition to Knorr Cetina’s (1999) concept, keeping it relevant for current concerns in Science and Technology Studies (STS). The article discusses central issues in STS, concerning how different academic and professional cultures exchange knowledge, including trading zones, boundary objects, and aspects of Actor-Network Theory, alongside an interest in epistemic cultures and knowledge production. We argue and demonstrate how knowledge exchange can be understood through epistemic differences and their persistence in collaborative work.

Energy communities of repair in remote infrastructures: a study of Puerto Edén in the Chilean Patagonia

Energy communities contribute to the justice of energy transition efforts to enhance the democratisation of contemporary energy policies. We ask what kind of circumstances and practices facilitate the continuity of energy access in remote communities with lagging infrastructures. To answer this question, we propose an approach to researching energy communities of repair based on a study of Puerto Edén, a remote island in the Chilean Patagonia. Since 2020, research has been carried out in this locality using an ethnographic and interactive methodology from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective through systematic fieldwork. The results demonstrate the challenges these communities face as they address deficiencies in governance, providing provisional and definitive solutions. Abandonment of renewable infrastructure could be avoided if historic energy repair communities in remote locations are identified and involved in just energy transition programs.

Pluralising critical technical practice

In this special issue, we turn to ideas of and approaches to critical technical practices (CTPs) as entry points to doing critique and doing things critically in digitally mediated cultures and societies. We explore the pluralisation of ‘critical technical practice’, starting from its early formulations in the context of AI research and development (Agre, 1997a, 1997b) to the many ways in which it has resonated and been taken up by different publications, projects, groups, and communities of practice, and what is has come to mean. Agre defined CTP as a situational, practical, and constructive way of working: ‘a technical practice for which critical reflection upon the practice is part of the practice itself’ (1997a: XII). Communities of practice in which the notion has been adopted, adapted, and put to use range from human–computer interaction (HCI) to media art and pedagogy, from science and technology studies (STS) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) to digital humanities, media studies and data studies. This special issue affirms the pluralisation of CTP, and serves as an invitation to (re)consider what it means to use this notion drawing on a wider body of work, including beyond Agre. In this introduction, we review and discuss CTPs according to (1) Agre, (2) indexed research, and (3) contributors to this special issue. We conclude with some questions and considerations for those interested in working with this notion.

Listening Beyond the Human: The Autonomous Recording Unit and the Ethics of Sound in Biodiversity Conservation

Sound technologies and sound sensor networks play a crucial role in our understanding of biodiversity loss in conservation biology and the environmental sciences. Among these technologies, the autonomous recording unit (ARU) has been widely used for studying longitudinal biodiversity loss. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017 at a bioacoustics research laboratory to explore the significance of the ARU, developed by Wildlife Acoustics, as the central component of the research network for biodiversity conservation. While it is commonly acknowledged in Science and Technology Studies (STS) that research instruments are not neutral data collectors, this article examines how the ARU is deployed and programmed, and how it transcends the limitations of human-centered listening by (a) shifting the focus away from the perceiving human subject and (b) promoting a global ethic of response and responsibility as sound becomes more democratized in scientific practices.

Editorial Presentation - Perspectives on innovation governance: challenges and dilemmas

Editorial Presentation - Perspectives on innovation governance: challenges and dilemmas

Markets for Promoting Innovation in Health Care? A Market Practice Study of Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI)

This article critically analyzes public procurement of innovation (PPI) as an instance of using markets or market-like aspects as a means to resolve public concerns. It reports findings from a case of procuring radiation therapy equipment for a university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. By extending a line of literature built on economic sociology as well as science and technology studies (STS), the study elaborates on public actors’ efforts in framing markets to promote innovation. The case illustrates how the participating actors constructed the notion of innovativeness to be introduced into health care as means of addressing various public concerns. It also reveals the intended—and unintended—consequences of PPI as manifested in various actors’ claims on the value of PPI realized in practice. The study suggests that it is extremely difficult to frame a market for the realization of innovation via procurement as a policy instrument because we cannot predict the ultimate impacts of devices and practices employed in such initiatives. By formulating a practice-based critique of PPI, our study invites important questions about the potentiality of such instruments for governing innovation without delimiting their consequences to the success-or-failure dichotomy as prescribed in predefined tools and strategies.