scholarly journals Praksismagi? - praksis som tidens løsen og problem i videnskabs- og teknologistudier

2018 ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Casper Bruun Jensen ◽  
Christopher Gad
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Practical Implications

In science and technology studies (STS) practice has become predominant both as analytical focus and as empirical object. Taking our point of departure in a brief genealogy of the ‘practice turn’, the central aim of this paper is to identify some analytical problems with current uses of ‘practice’. Centrally, we argue, the concept of practice has come to be inscribed with a certain kind of ‘magical’ explanatory power. In contrast, to current practice theory, we suggest that, rather than providing an explanatory framework, practice is what needs to be explained. We further suggest that this requires a simultaneous expansion of the concept, which will enable it to include thinking and theorizing as part of practice, and a theoretical practice minimalism. Finally, we suggest that these requirements are consequential for the political and practical implications of practice theory.

Broadening out and opening up: an agonistic attitude toward progressive social accounting

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Dillard ◽  
Judy Brown
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Environmental Accounting ◽  
Accountability Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the current research program in agonistic dialogic accounting and to reflect on future possibilities for broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems, especially as they relate to social and environmental accounting (SEA). Design/methodology/approach – The authors describe an ethic of accountability as a context for dialogue and debate intended to broaden out and open up new imaginings of accounting for democracy. The authors review the accounting literature addressing dialogic accounting and agonistics as the precursor of what has evolved into agonistic dialogic accounting. The authors discuss their work to date on agonistic pluralism and engagement, recognizing the necessity of linking the normative framework to an effective political program. The authors review prior studies applying science and technology studies that have addressed these issues. Findings – The authors consider how the application of agonistic ideas might facilitate the development of multiple accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives often marginalized in both SEA and mainstream accounting. An ethic of accountability and science and technology studies are useful for stimulating dialogue and debate regarding democratic and civil society institutions as they relate to economic entities, especially corporations. Practical implications – Agonistic dialogic accounting in conjunction with other disciplines such as science and technology studies can be used in formulating, implementing and evaluating policy for advancing a progressive social agenda. Originality/value – A reflective view of the current work in agonistic dialogic accounting highlights considerations for further research regarding the possible interdisciplinary work particularly with science and technology studies in broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems as facilitators of progressive social agenda.

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

Challenges to the Story of Innovation

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Michiel van Oudheusden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Technological Decision Making

This chapter sets out the meanings attached to the concept of ‘innovation’ and asks how it has recently come to occupy the political and economic position it now holds. Drawing from science and technology studies, which has long sought to better incorporate the public in technological decision-making, it explores the impetus towards connecting ‘responsibility’ with ‘innovation’ and the context from which this derives. Finally, it examines how this impetus has become incorporated into various frameworks for Responsible (Research and) Innovation, and what is missing from this approach in terms of understanding the place of ‘innovation’ in the present political economy, and the place of politics in innovation.

The Revenge of the Humanities: Reality, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Postmodernism

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Ward
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Status

The debate between scientific realists and postmodern relativists has been generally treated as a philosophical disagreement over the status of epistemology. Here, however, I use material from Bourdieuian social theory and science and technology studies to illustrate how both scientific realism and postmodern deconstructionism can be seen as political and organizational strategies used in the historical and ongoing struggle between scientific and literary fields and camps. I argue that just as scientific realism and experimentalism were used to dismiss the knowledge contributions of literary fields and to relegate them to secondary status in the seventeenth century, postmodern deconstructionism and its turn to rhetoric and textualism is now being employed as a strategy to counter the political and intellectual dominance gained by the sciences over the last few centuries.

scholarly journals The Responsibilities and Obligations of STS in a Moment of Post-Truth Demagoguery

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve G. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Technological Tools ◽  
Fact Checking ◽  
Scientific Expertise

Scientific expertise and the free press have come under sustained partisan attack with the political ascendance of right-wing nationalism. This has put some science and technology studies (STS) scholars in the difficult position of defending the legitimacy of science while maintaining a characteristic agnosticism toward “the facts.” In this essay, inspired by a reading of Noortje Marres’s (2018) critique of fact-checking services, I seek to relieve some of the background anxiety I sense that perhaps STS research paved a path for the rise of right wing authoritarianism and “post-truth” politics. We are not dealing with a process of fact making in this environment, at least not of the scientific variety. Instead, we are dealing with political demagoguery. As scholars, we should therefore equip ourselves with the appropriate analytic and technological tools, and as many as possible, for engaging this political moment.

scholarly journals Praxistheorien und Religionswissenschaft

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Practice Turn

Im Anschluss an den practice turn, der zu Beginn des Jahrtausends vor allem von Arbeiten im Bereich der Science and Technology Studies getragen wurde, hat das theoretische Vokabular der Praxistheorien weitläufig Prominenz erlangt. In der Religionswissenschaft wird es dagegen nur zögerlich rezipiert. Die Beitragenden des Bandes nehmen sich dieses Zögerns an und liefern neben theoretischen Überlegungen, die nach den Implikationen und Potenzialen praxistheoretischer Konzepte für die Religionswissenschaft fragen, auch Beiträge, die Wege der Anwendung von Praxistheorien in empirischen Projekten aufzeigen.

Methodologies and Models in Military Innovation Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-134
Author(s):  
Burke ii Laurence M.
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Innovation ◽  
Innovation Studies ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
New Models

Barry Posen’s 1984 book, The Sources of Military Doctrine, is considered to have kicked off the field of military innovation studies. While historians have made contributions to the field, it is the political scientists who have created new models of military innovation, likely because historians avoid the predictive connotations of “model”. This article first reviews the dominant models in the field that rely on the actions and decisions of individuals (as opposed to more diffuse cultural models) and places them in dialogue with each other. Second, it argues that historians should be less leery of “models”, since they create or use implicit models in their own work. Finally, this article proposes that the various models laid out in the first part of the article may be seen as specific cases of a methodology from science and technology studies, “Actor/Network Theory”, which is a promising new tool for analyzing military innovation.

scholarly journals (Dis)entangling Barad: Materialisms and ethics

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 918-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Hollin ◽  
Isla Forsyth ◽  
Eva Giraud ◽  
Tracey Potts
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Material World ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Agential Realism ◽  
Karen Barad

In the wake of the widespread uptake of and debate surrounding the work of Karen Barad, this article revisits her core conceptual contributions. We offer descriptions, elaborations, problematizations and provocations for those intrigued by or invested in this body of work. We examine Barad’s use of quantum physics, which underpins her conception of the material world. We discuss the political strengths of this position but also note tensions associated with applying quantum physics to phenomena at macro-scales. We identify both frictions and unacknowledged affinities with science and technology studies in Barad’s critique of reflexivity and her concept of diffraction. We flesh out Barad’s overarching position of ‘agential realism’, which contains a revised understanding of scientific apparatuses. Building upon these discussions, we argue that inherent in agential realism is both an ethics of inclusion and an ethics of exclusion. Existing research has, however, frequently emphasized entanglement and inclusion to the detriment of foreclosure and exclusion. Nonetheless, we contend that it is in the potential for an ethics of exclusion that Barad’s work could be of greatest utility within science and technology studies and beyond.

Obscuring Gendered Difference: The Treatment of Violence in Australian Government Alcohol Policy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane Duncan ◽  
David Moore ◽  
Helen Keane ◽  
Mats Ekendahl
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
Alcohol Policies ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Political Effects

Abstract Despite public debate about alcohol and public violence among young people in Australia, the issue of masculinities or gender is rarely visible in alcohol policy. Instead, policy recommendations aimed at reducing violence focus on changing the availability and consumption of alcohol. Drawing on concepts from feminist and science and technology studies scholarship, this article analyses how “alcohol-related violence” is constituted as a specific policy object, and how it coheres to obscure men’s contributions to and experiences of violence. Attention to the political effects of these policy practices is necessary for the development of more equitable alcohol policies.

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