Synergies between globalization and knowledge economy were suggested to direct biomedical research towards economically-interested activities. In this context, research in malaria, a disease endemic to poverty, may be at a paradoxical stance. This study addresses this issue assessing whether malaria research is driven by the accumulation of economic and/or other forms of capital. Drawing upon academic and epistemic capitalism, malaria research is characterized through the analysis of all Web of science-indexed publications involving Portuguese organizations (1900-2014; n=467). First, data was systematized by content and bibliometric analyses. Subsequently, multiple correspondence analysis revealed a bi-dimensional landscape (who’s publishing; what’s published) and cluster analysis identified three profiles (beginners; local appropriations; global science). This study reveals the construction of Portugal’s scientific system and unveils the assimilation of dominant modes of organizing, doing and thinking despite malaria’s research low profit potential. Extending this approach to other biomedical fields can unravel the dimensions underlying science’s (re)construction.
{"title":"Profiles of Malaria Research in Portugal","authors":"A. Ferreira, A. Teixeira","doi":"10.23987/sts.60861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.60861","url":null,"abstract":"Synergies between globalization and knowledge economy were suggested to direct biomedical research towards economically-interested activities. In this context, research in malaria, a disease endemic to poverty, may be at a paradoxical stance. This study addresses this issue assessing whether malaria research is driven by the accumulation of economic and/or other forms of capital. Drawing upon academic and epistemic capitalism, malaria research is characterized through the analysis of all Web of science-indexed publications involving Portuguese organizations (1900-2014; n=467). First, data was systematized by content and bibliometric analyses. Subsequently, multiple correspondence analysis revealed a bi-dimensional landscape (who’s publishing; what’s published) and cluster analysis identified three profiles (beginners; local appropriations; global science). This study reveals the construction of Portugal’s scientific system and unveils the assimilation of dominant modes of organizing, doing and thinking despite malaria’s research low profit potential. Extending this approach to other biomedical fields can unravel the dimensions underlying science’s (re)construction.","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49551674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"John Law and Evelyn Ruppert (eds) (2016) Modes of Knowing: Resources from the Baroque. Manchester: Mattering Press. 265 pages. ISBN: 978-0-9931449-8-1","authors":"Sarah pilar Iacobucci algarra","doi":"10.23987/sts.83783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.83783","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49435081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vincenzo Pavone and Goven Joanna (eds.) (2017) Bioeconomies. Life, Technology, and Capital in the 21st Century. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 350 pages. ISBN 978-3-319-55650-5","authors":"E. Aibar","doi":"10.23987/sts.83751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.83751","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48980708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Strategic research indicates a problem-oriented, collaborative process of knowledge creation. Analysing a Finnish research project Smart Energy Transition and a related Delphi survey, we conceptualize strategic research as ‘futures work’ and as translations of technologies, time frames and narratives into a future vision. We ask 1) What is the role of the notion of disruption in strategic research and in the acts of translation? 2) What are the available means of articulating “disruption” in a Delphi survey? and 3) How do academics carrying out strategic research align themselves as part of actor networks? We find that the notion of disruption mediates the boundaries between science, business and policy. Moreover, plural time frames of short-term changes in actor networks and long-term speculative visions enable boundary work. Alignment between actors hinges on methodology, specific academic backgrounds and expertize, public energy discourses, national and industry interests, as well as neoliberal policy approaches that see futures as business opportunities.
{"title":"Futures Work as a Mode of Academic Engagement","authors":"M. Jalas, Mikko Rask, T. Marttila, T. Ahonen","doi":"10.23987/sts.65948","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.65948","url":null,"abstract":"Strategic research indicates a problem-oriented, collaborative process of knowledge creation. Analysing a Finnish research project Smart Energy Transition and a related Delphi survey, we conceptualize strategic research as ‘futures work’ and as translations of technologies, time frames and narratives into a future vision. We ask 1) What is the role of the notion of disruption in strategic research and in the acts of translation? 2) What are the available means of articulating “disruption” in a Delphi survey? and 3) How do academics carrying out strategic research align themselves as part of actor networks? We find that the notion of disruption mediates the boundaries between science, business and policy. Moreover, plural time frames of short-term changes in actor networks and long-term speculative visions enable boundary work. Alignment between actors hinges on methodology, specific academic backgrounds and expertize, public energy discourses, national and industry interests, as well as neoliberal policy approaches that see futures as business opportunities.","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44283381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Science and Technology Studies understandings of technological change are at odds with its own dominant research designs and methodological guidelines. A key insight from the social shaping of technology research, for instance, has been that new technologies are formed in multiple interlinked settings, by many different groups of actors over long periods of time. Nonetheless, common research designs have not kept pace with these conceptual advances, continuing instead to resort to either intensive localised ethnographic engagements or extensive historical studies, both of which can generate only partial and limited accounts of the processes they suggest are at playThere has, however, been increasing interest in extending current methodological and analytical approaches through longitudinal and multi-site research templates, which include the emerging ‘biographies of artifacts and practices’ (BOAP) framework. Since its onset in the 1990s, there are now numerous exemplifications of the BOAP approach. This paper outlines its basic rationale and principles, and its significant variations, and discusses its contribution to STS understandings of innovation, especially user-led innovation. We finish by arguing that if STS is to continue to provide insight around innovation this will require a reconceptualisation of research design, to move from simple ‘snap shot’ studies to the linking together of ‘a string of investigations’.
{"title":"Method Matters in the Social Study of Technology: Investigating the Biographies of Artifacts and Practices","authors":"S. Hyysalo, N. Pollock, Robin Williams","doi":"10.23987/STS.65532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/STS.65532","url":null,"abstract":"Science and Technology Studies understandings of technological change are at odds with its own dominant research designs and methodological guidelines. A key insight from the social shaping of technology research, for instance, has been that new technologies are formed in multiple interlinked settings, by many different groups of actors over long periods of time. Nonetheless, common research designs have not kept pace with these conceptual advances, continuing instead to resort to either intensive localised ethnographic engagements or extensive historical studies, both of which can generate only partial and limited accounts of the processes they suggest are at playThere has, however, been increasing interest in extending current methodological and analytical approaches through longitudinal and multi-site research templates, which include the emerging ‘biographies of artifacts and practices’ (BOAP) framework. Since its onset in the 1990s, there are now numerous exemplifications of the BOAP approach. This paper outlines its basic rationale and principles, and its significant variations, and discusses its contribution to STS understandings of innovation, especially user-led innovation. We finish by arguing that if STS is to continue to provide insight around innovation this will require a reconceptualisation of research design, to move from simple ‘snap shot’ studies to the linking together of ‘a string of investigations’.","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48600005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jamie Cross, Simone Abram, Mike Anusas and Lea Schick (eds) (2017) Our Lives with Electric Things. Society for Cultural Anthropology. Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, December 19.","authors":"Elaine Gan","doi":"10.23987/STS.80018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/STS.80018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42226371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Virginia Eubanks (2018) Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 260 pages. eISBN: 9781466885967","authors":"R. Simmonds","doi":"10.23987/STS.77647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/STS.77647","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49203955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Collaborative interdisciplinary research is on the rise but can be difficult and daunting. There is much to learn by studying the inner workings of collaboration, to the potential benefit of both science and technology studies (STS) and those who collaborate. We have been studying the inner workings of a collaborative interdisciplinary team using formative accompanying research (FAR). Assuming multiple insider-outsider vantage points implied adopting dynamic positionality in relation to the team. In this article, we outline an approach to navigating positionality based on these research experiences. Navigation is aided by identifying learning orientations to a collaborative team, to learn about, with or for the team; and by adopting practices and principles to balance i) observation and participation; ii) curiosity and care; and iii) impartiality and investment. We illustrate what we have learned so far, demonstrating how to apply these navigating instruments so that the skilful use of FAR positionality can advance the understanding and practice of collaborative interdisciplinary research.
{"title":"Researching Collaborative Interdisciplinary Teams","authors":"R. Freeth, U. Vilsmaier","doi":"10.23987/STS.73060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/STS.73060","url":null,"abstract":"Collaborative interdisciplinary research is on the rise but can be difficult and daunting. There is much to learn by studying the inner workings of collaboration, to the potential benefit of both science and technology studies (STS) and those who collaborate. We have been studying the inner workings of a collaborative interdisciplinary team using formative accompanying research (FAR). Assuming multiple insider-outsider vantage points implied adopting dynamic positionality in relation to the team. In this article, we outline an approach to navigating positionality based on these research experiences. Navigation is aided by identifying learning orientations to a collaborative team, to learn about, with or for the team; and by adopting practices and principles to balance i) observation and participation; ii) curiosity and care; and iii) impartiality and investment. We illustrate what we have learned so far, demonstrating how to apply these navigating instruments so that the skilful use of FAR positionality can advance the understanding and practice of collaborative interdisciplinary research.","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68795374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last 15 years, STS has established a research programme focused on the sociotechnical reconfiguration of later life, particularly as new political programmes aim to deploy ‘active ageing’ in contemporary societies. In Denmark, the bicycle is a key technology in this aim, because of how it articulates sustainable living, health and social participation. Thus, two new ‘inclusive cycling’ initiatives for older people have been developed. Drawing on ethnographic data, we explore the ways the bikes differ, and how they explicitly mobilise active ageing as a form of ‘good old age’ in different ways. We argue that whereas ‘Cycling without Age’ rickshaws attempt to assemble social participation for older people, ‘Duo-Bikes’ aim to enable capacities through physical activity in later life. We further explore what happens when these two schemes meet, and suggest how searching for a compromise will be necessary to enhance opportunities to cycle in later life.
{"title":"New Bikes for the Old","authors":"A. J. Lassen, Tiago Moreira","doi":"10.23987/STS.77239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23987/STS.77239","url":null,"abstract":"In the last 15 years, STS has established a research programme focused on the sociotechnical reconfiguration of later life, particularly as new political programmes aim to deploy ‘active ageing’ in contemporary societies. In Denmark, the bicycle is a key technology in this aim, because of how it articulates sustainable living, health and social participation. Thus, two new ‘inclusive cycling’ initiatives for older people have been developed. Drawing on ethnographic data, we explore the ways the bikes differ, and how they explicitly mobilise active ageing as a form of ‘good old age’ in different ways. We argue that whereas ‘Cycling without Age’ rickshaws attempt to assemble social participation for older people, ‘Duo-Bikes’ aim to enable capacities through physical activity in later life. We further explore what happens when these two schemes meet, and suggest how searching for a compromise will be necessary to enhance opportunities to cycle in later life.","PeriodicalId":45119,"journal":{"name":"Science and Technology Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68795387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}