Social Studies of Science最新文献

What does a postcolonial inquiry into technoscience do? And what is it for? I develop these questions by reconsidering one powerful idea: that science and technology studies (STS) is postcolonial when it elucidates the hybridity, heterogeneity, and indeterminacy of global technoscientific formations, and does so to falsify colonial fantasies of hegemony expressed in imperious conceptual generalities and sovereign universalisms. Revisiting Warwick Anderson's expositions of postcolonial STS-initiated in this journal two decades ago-I reflect on the form and force of this critical operation. Despite an animating aversion to universalisms, the pursuit of hybridity and heterogeneity may ultimately universalize a liberal metaphysics of agency. This paradox suggests limits to the critical operation that pits hybridity and indeterminacy against hegemony in a postcolonial spirit.

When the future is connected to the term 'imagination', it is generally presented through the concept of the 'imaginary'-that is, an image of the future that is related to a grand social image. In this article, we discuss the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries and argue that although this concept provides a needed perspective that allows scholars to unpack imaginaries associated with technological futures, it often features very broad concepts, hindering investigation of the ongoing dynamics of the actual acts of imagining and imagination. In contrast, we are interested in examining the processes and practices of imagination of socio-technical futures. Attempting to extend and deepen the development of this prevalent approach in STS, we make three incremental claims. First, future imaginaries should be addressed as a product of a process of imagination, not just in their final stable states. Second, exploring the process of future imagination reveals the effect of different temporalities-patterns of future imagination that expand the common singular far-future imaginary. Third, using a temporality-based analysis, we can identify different future planning techniques and practices in terms of their levels of formality and institutionalization.

This article presents a situational analysis of the expert advice offered by Independent SAGE, a group of scientists that formed in May 2020 in the UK to provide advice on the Covid response. Based on interviews with the group's members and partners, we argue that through its interventions Indie SAGE demonstrated an important alternative approach to linking science and politics in a time of emergency. They showed that the only way to ensure that policy and decision-making on Covid-19 was grounded in knowledge was by making expert advice public. Indie SAGE's decision to 'go public' was a response to the political situation in the UK, one in which scientific advice, in particular public health expertise, was being ignored, sidelined and contested as such. We identify four rationales for making expert advice public: openness, calling out, translation, and responsive engagement. We describe associated modes of intervention that Indie SAGE adopted in relation to different critical situations of Covid-19. Distinctive about their advice, we argue, is its prioritization of situational adequacy. Much of it was explicitly oriented towards addressing practical and existential challenges experienced by particular social groups, professions and everyday publics. We argue that this way of making science public in an 'ontological' register acquires critical importance in a political situation like the UK Covid response, which was marked not just by disagreements about science but growing contestation of science as such. In this respect, our study holds a wider lesson for the understanding of the role of evidence in public politics. To advocate for evidence-based governance, as Indie SAGE did, is not necessarily to endorse a post-political vision of government. When science is contested in a time of emergency, making evidence public becomes a key means for responding to the demands of situations. It is not only pragmatic but a critical accomplishment.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are novel techno-economic configurations underpinned by cryptocurrency ledgers that transform digital files like graphic art, music, videos, etc. into digital assets. NFTs are often framed as a way for artists and other creators to profit from their activities, transforming 'experiences' into something for sale. As such, NFTs raise some questions pertinent to science and technology studies and political economy. We focus on analysing how NFTs are constructed as digital assets by unpacking the practices, devices, relations, and rights implicated in their construction. We use the concept of 'assetization' to examine the contingencies, problematics, and implications of NFTs and the claims, practices, and entitlements that configure them as a new type of asset. We undertake this analysis through a research-creation process by summarizing and discussing the process of creating and submitting an NFT to a specialized marketplace.

The size of India's food deficit became a pressing question for the Indian state in the early years of independence. As different organizations, government bodies, and individuals debated over the ways, means, and expertise needed to tide over the food crisis, policymakers realized that the primary requirement was to have a numerical understanding of the problem. Data became crucial to accurately assess production trends and compare them with requirements. This article looks into the use of statistical methods, particularly, random sampling and production estimation through a crop-cutting technique. Exploring the statistical survey work done by P.C. Mahalanobis in Bengal from the late years of colonial rule to the surveys conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research under the supervision of P.V. Sukhatme and V.G. Panse, the article analyzes how different factors, such as varying revenue systems of different regions and administrative structures, power struggles amongst statisticians, and leverage gained by Indian statisticians from support they received from better known British counterparts, all played a role in determining the nature of statistical tools adopted in India to measure its food production. Inaccurate data continued to be a challenge for the Indian state until well into the late 1950s, and that can now be explained in terms of this discord between Mahalanobis-led Kolkata-ISI and the ICAR of Sukhatme's time. India continued to follow different methods of statistical survey of foodcrops, thus, the scientific/political establishment always struggled with the apprehension that they did not have the 'right' data to come up with the correct assessment of the scene.