B. Rappert, Dana Wilson‐Kovacs, Hannah Wheat, S. Leonelli
A reader can expect the abstract, paper and keywords to discuss descriptions of evidence, classification schema, seizure rules and more generally the data frictions, constraints and limitations associated with the processing of digital forensic evidence involving children in England. The widespread availability and use of digital devices both enables criminal acts and helps to detect them. The production and circulation of indecent images of children has been one area of crime that has transformed in recent years because of developments in modern communication technologies. Through in-depth ethnographic observations and qualitative interviews with four police forces in England, this article examines the resources and labor required to turn digital footprints into evidence for the possession of indecent images. In doing so, our aim is twofold. One, we detail the formal and informal processes whereby large sets of data become discrete pieces of judicial evidence. A notable feature of these administrative and technical processes is that while criminal justice agencies often strive for linear investigations, such aspirations fail to acknowledge the messy interrelation of expertise and roles that underpin the transformation of digital devices into evidence. As a second aim, we seek to identify similarities and differences in the practices whereby evidence is constructed between digital and other areas of forensics. In particular, this analysis raises questions around the descriptive and normative adequacies of prevalent theories of objectivity for digital forensics.
{"title":"Evincing Offence: How Digital Forensics Turns Big Data into Evidence for Policing Sexual Abuse","authors":"B. Rappert, Dana Wilson‐Kovacs, Hannah Wheat, S. Leonelli","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1049","url":null,"abstract":"A reader can expect the abstract, paper and keywords to discuss descriptions of evidence, classification schema, seizure rules and more generally the data frictions, constraints and limitations associated with the processing of digital forensic evidence involving children in England. \u0000The widespread availability and use of digital devices both enables criminal acts and helps to detect them. The production and circulation of indecent images of children has been one area of crime that has transformed in recent years because of developments in modern communication technologies. Through in-depth ethnographic observations and qualitative interviews with four police forces in England, this article examines the resources and labor required to turn digital footprints into evidence for the possession of indecent images. In doing so, our aim is twofold. One, we detail the formal and informal processes whereby large sets of data become discrete pieces of judicial evidence. A notable feature of these administrative and technical processes is that while criminal justice agencies often strive for linear investigations, such aspirations fail to acknowledge the messy interrelation of expertise and roles that underpin the transformation of digital devices into evidence. As a second aim, we seek to identify similarities and differences in the practices whereby evidence is constructed between digital and other areas of forensics. In particular, this analysis raises questions around the descriptive and normative adequacies of prevalent theories of objectivity for digital forensics.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43853405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Noela Invernizzi, A. Davyt, Pablo Kreimer, Leandro Rodriguez Medina
In the context of increasing internationalization of the science and technology studies (STS) field, and reflections on post-coloniality and provincialization of STS, we examine to what extent a set of twelve leading journals of the field have published papers from different regions worldwide. In this exploratory work, based on information retrieved from the Web of Science for the period 2010–2019, we often use Latin America as an example, but reflect on peripheral regions of the field more broadly. Our findings show that the historical West-European–North-American centers of the field maintain their hegemony, dominating the discussions in leading journals. Some Latin American and East Asian countries gained some visibility in journals focused on scientometrics and science and technology (S&T) policy and innovation, whereas the journals specialized in the socio-anthropological studies of S&T are the less transnationalized. Our preliminary hypothesis to explain such sub-field variations is that these objects (scientific policy, innovation) and methods (scientometrics) seem to be more universal and consensual, facilitating transnationalization, while peripheral science, the preferred object of study for peripheral STS, has not attracted attention from leading journals. Emphasizing the relational character of centers and peripheries, we argue that the invisibilization of the academic production of certain regions of the world in leading journals makes this work peripheral.
在科学技术研究(STS)领域日益国际化的背景下，以及对STS后殖民主义和省区化的反思，我们研究了该领域的12种主要期刊在多大程度上发表了来自世界不同地区的论文。在这项探索性工作中，基于2010-2019年期间从Web of Science检索的信息，我们经常以拉丁美洲为例，但更广泛地反映了该领域的外围地区。我们的研究结果表明，历史上西欧和北美的研究中心保持着他们的霸权地位，主导着主要期刊的讨论。一些拉美和东亚国家在以科学计量学和科技政策与创新为重点的期刊上获得了一定的知名度，而以科技社会人类学研究为重点的期刊的跨国化程度较低。我们对这些子领域变化的初步假设是，这些对象(科学政策、创新)和方法(科学计量学)似乎更具有普遍性和共识性，从而促进了跨国化，而外围科学作为外围STS的首选研究对象，尚未引起领先期刊的关注。强调中心和边缘的关系特征，我们认为，世界上某些地区的学术成果在主要期刊上的隐形化使得这项工作处于边缘。
{"title":"STS Between Centers and Peripheries: How Transnational are Leading STS Journals?","authors":"Noela Invernizzi, A. Davyt, Pablo Kreimer, Leandro Rodriguez Medina","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1005","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of increasing internationalization of the science and technology studies (STS) field, and reflections on post-coloniality and provincialization of STS, we examine to what extent a set of twelve leading journals of the field have published papers from different regions worldwide. In this exploratory work, based on information retrieved from the Web of Science for the period 2010–2019, we often use Latin America as an example, but reflect on peripheral regions of the field more broadly. Our findings show that the historical West-European–North-American centers of the field maintain their hegemony, dominating the discussions in leading journals. Some Latin American and East Asian countries gained some visibility in journals focused on scientometrics and science and technology (S&T) policy and innovation, whereas the journals specialized in the socio-anthropological studies of S&T are the less transnationalized. Our preliminary hypothesis to explain such sub-field variations is that these objects (scientific policy, innovation) and methods (scientometrics) seem to be more universal and consensual, facilitating transnationalization, while peripheral science, the preferred object of study for peripheral STS, has not attracted attention from leading journals. Emphasizing the relational character of centers and peripheries, we argue that the invisibilization of the academic production of certain regions of the world in leading journals makes this work peripheral.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46238841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Khandekar, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Alison Kenner, Angela Okune, Grant Jun Otsuki, S. Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, A. Windle, Emily York
In this editorial, the ESTS editorial collective (EC) reports on various events it had organized at the 2022 ESOCITE/4S joint meeting held at the Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla in Cholula, México. The EC hosted a journal “happy hour” meet-up and several roundtables on the “Politics of Language,” the challenges and opportunities for open research data in STS worlds, as well as a Managing Editor (ME) Roundtable collaborating with other OA journals. The EC also participated in a two-day pre-conference writing workshop for early-career researchers. Various events organized further the EC’s commitment to cultivating and supporting the development of transnational STS.
{"title":"Pursuing Transnational STS at ESOCITE/4S Joint Conference","authors":"A. Khandekar, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Alison Kenner, Angela Okune, Grant Jun Otsuki, S. Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, A. Windle, Emily York","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.2011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.2011","url":null,"abstract":"In this editorial, the ESTS editorial collective (EC) reports on various events it had organized at the 2022 ESOCITE/4S joint meeting held at the Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla in Cholula, México. The EC hosted a journal “happy hour” meet-up and several roundtables on the “Politics of Language,” the challenges and opportunities for open research data in STS worlds, as well as a Managing Editor (ME) Roundtable collaborating with other OA journals. The EC also participated in a two-day pre-conference writing workshop for early-career researchers. Various events organized further the EC’s commitment to cultivating and supporting the development of transnational STS.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44941380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay explores transnational STS as an analytic capable of recognizing the heterogeneities, pluralities, and relationalities of drugs—legal and illegal, products of agriculture or laboratory—as emblematic material-semiotic actors that move between global North, West, South, and East and into and out of bodies. Critical drug studies flourishes as a transdisciplinary knowledge project at the nexus of anthropology, history, sociology, political science, and other knowledge projects. This article situates critical drug studies in relation to the interdisciplinary knowledge project that is transnational STS and to postcolonial, postpositivist, and decolonial STS. The paper responds to the prompt offered by the organizers of a stream of papers in 2020—on “Transnational STS” for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S): “What becomes visible when nation-state as the only analytic breaks down? What is the role of the nation-state with regard to education, research activities and the regulation of technologies in the contemporary period?” This article deals with the bifurcated regulation of drugs as technologies made legal or illegal by a global colonial, imperial, and nation-state-based regime that has made global drug policy since the early twentieth century. We are witnessing the reconfiguration of this regulatory system within and between nations—making a transnational analytic frame necessary for recognizing the relations facilitated by global drug policy.
{"title":"Transnationalizing Critical Drug Studies","authors":"N. Campbell","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.873","url":null,"abstract":"This essay explores transnational STS as an analytic capable of recognizing the heterogeneities, pluralities, and relationalities of drugs—legal and illegal, products of agriculture or laboratory—as emblematic material-semiotic actors that move between global North, West, South, and East and into and out of bodies. Critical drug studies flourishes as a transdisciplinary knowledge project at the nexus of anthropology, history, sociology, political science, and other knowledge projects. This article situates critical drug studies in relation to the interdisciplinary knowledge project that is transnational STS and to postcolonial, postpositivist, and decolonial STS. The paper responds to the prompt offered by the organizers of a stream of papers in 2020—on “Transnational STS” for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S): “What becomes visible when nation-state as the only analytic breaks down? What is the role of the nation-state with regard to education, research activities and the regulation of technologies in the contemporary period?” This article deals with the bifurcated regulation of drugs as technologies made legal or illegal by a global colonial, imperial, and nation-state-based regime that has made global drug policy since the early twentieth century. We are witnessing the reconfiguration of this regulatory system within and between nations—making a transnational analytic frame necessary for recognizing the relations facilitated by global drug policy.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47625699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), hosted in Glasgow in 2021, reaffirmed the guidelines assumed in 2015 around the “Paris Agreement” (COP21). Many of these guidelines, which are aimed at building pathways to net zero carbon emissions, translate publicly into techno-scientific promises, such as the global development of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). However, these promises are also questioned in the mass media by several actors. Both promises and criticisms are based on scientific reports produced or evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, dependent on the United Nations). In this sense, the set of criteria mobilized by the IPCC constitutes a framework for the debate. However, this framework generates a projection of the future based primarily on technical criteria that omit social plausibility and ignore the particular conditions of peripheral countries to achieve the proposed objectives. As a result, they ignore the relationship between peripheral (dependent) and core nation-states. This relationship implies, among other consequences, a lack of technological autonomy for peripheral countries that makes very difficult to modify their economic structures (increasingly primarized) in order to be able to operate changes in the fight against global warming. In this paper we analyze such reception and translation of climate change promises in Argentina.
{"title":"Promises that Don’t Work? COP26 and the Problems of Climate Change","authors":"Juan Layna, Leandro Altamirano","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1377","url":null,"abstract":"The 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), hosted in Glasgow in 2021, reaffirmed the guidelines assumed in 2015 around the “Paris Agreement” (COP21). Many of these guidelines, which are aimed at building pathways to net zero carbon emissions, translate publicly into techno-scientific promises, such as the global development of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). However, these promises are also questioned in the mass media by several actors. Both promises and criticisms are based on scientific reports produced or evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, dependent on the United Nations). In this sense, the set of criteria mobilized by the IPCC constitutes a framework for the debate. However, this framework generates a projection of the future based primarily on technical criteria that omit social plausibility and ignore the particular conditions of peripheral countries to achieve the proposed objectives. As a result, they ignore the relationship between peripheral (dependent) and core nation-states. This relationship implies, among other consequences, a lack of technological autonomy for peripheral countries that makes very difficult to modify their economic structures (increasingly primarized) in order to be able to operate changes in the fight against global warming. In this paper we analyze such reception and translation of climate change promises in Argentina.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48259080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lorena Fleury, M. Monteiro, Tiago Filipe Eleutério Duarte
Global climate negotiations were again in the spotlight at Glasgow’s COP26 meeting in November 2021, drawing attention to the urgency of the climate crisis and to the need to find long term solutions. While Brazil has been a protagonist of such negotiations for decades, since 2019 the country has abdicated its leadership role, adopting a reactive stance to the environmental agenda. This shift is illustrative of the centrality of scientific disputes in government projects in conflict in Brazil. Since the election of Jair Bolsonaro, attacks on science have gained strength and institutionalized a position largely critical to existing scientific consensus about climate and the environment in the government. Together with the dismantling of Brazil’s environmental regulations—put in place also by the Bolsonaro government—those attacks on science have strained both its local capacities to curb deforestation (the source of most of the country’s emissions) and deepened inequalities and injustices ingrained in Brazilian society. In summary, we argue that STS can participate in finding a way out of the current political and social crisis and resisting the dismantling of a once robust environmental governance framework by unpacking the centrality of scientific production in disputes over climate and the environment.
{"title":"Brazil at COP26: Political and Scientific Disputes Under a Post-Truth Government","authors":"Lorena Fleury, M. Monteiro, Tiago Filipe Eleutério Duarte","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1381","url":null,"abstract":"Global climate negotiations were again in the spotlight at Glasgow’s COP26 meeting in November 2021, drawing attention to the urgency of the climate crisis and to the need to find long term solutions. While Brazil has been a protagonist of such negotiations for decades, since 2019 the country has abdicated its leadership role, adopting a reactive stance to the environmental agenda. This shift is illustrative of the centrality of scientific disputes in government projects in conflict in Brazil. Since the election of Jair Bolsonaro, attacks on science have gained strength and institutionalized a position largely critical to existing scientific consensus about climate and the environment in the government. Together with the dismantling of Brazil’s environmental regulations—put in place also by the Bolsonaro government—those attacks on science have strained both its local capacities to curb deforestation (the source of most of the country’s emissions) and deepened inequalities and injustices ingrained in Brazilian society. In summary, we argue that STS can participate in finding a way out of the current political and social crisis and resisting the dismantling of a once robust environmental governance framework by unpacking the centrality of scientific production in disputes over climate and the environment.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43652881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is a certain ‘failure’ in what we could call the modern development of the STS field over the past decade, i.e. a large number of studies—particularly empirical—that were deployed from the 1970s onwards. Indeed, one of their original and crucial objectives was to emphasize the local, situated, contingent character of the processes of production and negotiation of knowledge. However, these studies mostly concentrate on one part of the world, i.e. the most developed countries, precisely where modern science, commonly referred to as “Western Science,” developed. This limitation—surely intuitive or “natural”—has several consequences analyzed in this article. In summary, these limitations can be analyzed in terms of the objects of research (the various forms of knowledge) but also in terms of the theories and methods used to account for them. The aim is to discuss the construction of a double (or even triple) peripheral situation, which calls into question the old principles of symmetry and impartiality (Bloor 1976; Collins 1981): on the one hand, the peripheral character of the objects analyzed (i.e. science and scientific development outside Euro-America) and, in parallel, the peripheral situation of the communities of specialists who dedicate themselves to studying them. Connected to this, an additional question emerges: What are the theoretical frameworks and methodologies best suited to account for these objects in their respective contexts? Is it suitable to simply apply to these objects of study the same theoretical frameworks and methods commonly used to analyze hegemonic science? And last but not least, how to approach the (scientific, cultural, political) relationships between different contexts in a highly globalized world? This is the second of two parts: while in the first one I discuss the “failures” of the hegemonic paradigm in STS and its consequences in relation to non-hegemonic contexts, in this second part I focus on the problems raised by post-colonial approaches, on the “peripheral techno-science” as an object for STS scholars and, as a specific case, the development of STS research in Latin America and the dynamics of its specific agendas.
{"title":"Constructivist Paradoxes Part 2: Latin American STS, between Centers and Peripheries","authors":"Pablo Kreimer","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1893","url":null,"abstract":"There is a certain ‘failure’ in what we could call the modern development of the STS field over the past decade, i.e. a large number of studies—particularly empirical—that were deployed from the 1970s onwards. Indeed, one of their original and crucial objectives was to emphasize the local, situated, contingent character of the processes of production and negotiation of knowledge. However, these studies mostly concentrate on one part of the world, i.e. the most developed countries, precisely where modern science, commonly referred to as “Western Science,” developed. This limitation—surely intuitive or “natural”—has several consequences analyzed in this article. In summary, these limitations can be analyzed in terms of the objects of research (the various forms of knowledge) but also in terms of the theories and methods used to account for them. The aim is to discuss the construction of a double (or even triple) peripheral situation, which calls into question the old principles of symmetry and impartiality (Bloor 1976; Collins 1981): on the one hand, the peripheral character of the objects analyzed (i.e. science and scientific development outside Euro-America) and, in parallel, the peripheral situation of the communities of specialists who dedicate themselves to studying them. Connected to this, an additional question emerges: What are the theoretical frameworks and methodologies best suited to account for these objects in their respective contexts? Is it suitable to simply apply to these objects of study the same theoretical frameworks and methods commonly used to analyze hegemonic science? And last but not least, how to approach the (scientific, cultural, political) relationships between different contexts in a highly globalized world? This is the second of two parts: while in the first one I discuss the “failures” of the hegemonic paradigm in STS and its consequences in relation to non-hegemonic contexts, in this second part I focus on the problems raised by post-colonial approaches, on the “peripheral techno-science” as an object for STS scholars and, as a specific case, the development of STS research in Latin America and the dynamics of its specific agendas.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45850663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The challenges of research in ethics and technology require attentive listening. Geoffrey Charles Bowker, began to give attention to the theme over twenty years ago. What ensues is a contemporary commentary on the ethics of emerging technologies with extracts from an audio interview (by Zoom) between Elen Nas and Bowker, which took place during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic. The main question of this open dialogue is regarding the use of technologies such as AI to ask—what has changed with the problems identified now and in the past in relation to ethical computing? To paraphrase Bowker—it is impossible to think of new technologies that would not change human values then and now.
{"title":"Ethics of Emerging Technologies: An Interview with Geoffrey C. Bowker","authors":"Elen Nas","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1253","url":null,"abstract":"The challenges of research in ethics and technology require attentive listening. Geoffrey Charles Bowker, began to give attention to the theme over twenty years ago. What ensues is a contemporary commentary on the ethics of emerging technologies with extracts from an audio interview (by Zoom) between Elen Nas and Bowker, which took place during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic. The main question of this open dialogue is regarding the use of technologies such as AI to ask—what has changed with the problems identified now and in the past in relation to ethical computing? To paraphrase Bowker—it is impossible to think of new technologies that would not change human values then and now.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41398688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The mechanisms of research funding are in flux across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In Denmark the research system has experienced an increase in the concentration of research funding on individual researchers and topic areas. This article documents such concentration patterns in biomedical research and applies a case study methodology to explore some of its consequences. The study contrasts the markedly different funding environments of two sets of biomedical researchers at the same public university. One set of scientists has benefited significantly from working in specialized research centers sponsored by private funds. The other, located at a conventional university department has been adversely affected by the changing funding logic of the Danish research system. We compare the two sets of researchers with regard to: 1) how they perceive their funding conditions to have changed in recent times, 2) what coping strategies they rely on, and 3) how they perceive this to impact their “problem choice.” Our analysis shows how scientists, as a consequence of rising competition over funding and growing resource concentration on fewer research specialties (of particular interest to private funders), perceive considerable pressure to adapt their research activities. The perceived impact however differs substantially across informants.
{"title":"Maneuvering through a Changing Funding Terrain: Biomedical University Scientists in Positive and Negative Feedback Loops","authors":"Alexander Kladakis, K. Aagaard, J. Hansen","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.959","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.959","url":null,"abstract":"The mechanisms of research funding are in flux across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In Denmark the research system has experienced an increase in the concentration of research funding on individual researchers and topic areas. This article documents such concentration patterns in biomedical research and applies a case study methodology to explore some of its consequences. The study contrasts the markedly different funding environments of two sets of biomedical researchers at the same public university. One set of scientists has benefited significantly from working in specialized research centers sponsored by private funds. The other, located at a conventional university department has been adversely affected by the changing funding logic of the Danish research system. We compare the two sets of researchers with regard to: 1) how they perceive their funding conditions to have changed in recent times, 2) what coping strategies they rely on, and 3) how they perceive this to impact their “problem choice.” Our analysis shows how scientists, as a consequence of rising competition over funding and growing resource concentration on fewer research specialties (of particular interest to private funders), perceive considerable pressure to adapt their research activities. The perceived impact however differs substantially across informants.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45879943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In spite of a growing interest in ethical approaches to computation, engineers and quantitative researchers are often not equipped with the conceptual tools necessary to interrogate, resist, and reimagine the relationships of power which shape their work. A liberatory vision of computation requires de-centering the data in “data ethics” in favor of cultivating an ethics of encounter that foregrounds the ways computation reproduces structures of domination. This article draws from a rich body of feminist scholarship that explores the liberatory potential of refusal as a practice of generative boundary setting. To refuse is to say no—to reject the default categories, assumptions and problem formulations which so often underpin data-intensive work. But refusal is more than just saying no; it can be a generative and strategic act, one which opens up space to renegotiate the assumptions underlying sociotechnical endeavors. This article explores two complementary modalities of refusal in computation: “refusal as resistance” and “refusal as re-centering the margins.” By exploring these two modes of refusal, the goal of this paper is to provide a vocabulary for identifying and rejecting the ways that sociotechnical systems reinforce dependency on oppressive structural conditions, as well as offer a framework for flexible collective experimentation towards more free futures.
{"title":"Refusal in Data Ethics: Re-Imagining the Code Beneath the Code of Computation in the Carceral State","authors":"Chelsea Barabas","doi":"10.17351/ests2022.1233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2022.1233","url":null,"abstract":"In spite of a growing interest in ethical approaches to computation, engineers and quantitative researchers are often not equipped with the conceptual tools necessary to interrogate, resist, and reimagine the relationships of power which shape their work. A liberatory vision of computation requires de-centering the data in “data ethics” in favor of cultivating an ethics of encounter that foregrounds the ways computation reproduces structures of domination. This article draws from a rich body of feminist scholarship that explores the liberatory potential of refusal as a practice of generative boundary setting. To refuse is to say no—to reject the default categories, assumptions and problem formulations which so often underpin data-intensive work. But refusal is more than just saying no; it can be a generative and strategic act, one which opens up space to renegotiate the assumptions underlying sociotechnical endeavors. This article explores two complementary modalities of refusal in computation: “refusal as resistance” and “refusal as re-centering the margins.” By exploring these two modes of refusal, the goal of this paper is to provide a vocabulary for identifying and rejecting the ways that sociotechnical systems reinforce dependency on oppressive structural conditions, as well as offer a framework for flexible collective experimentation towards more free futures.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43058665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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