Other Entanglements

Entanglements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Tosoni ◽  
Trevor Pinch
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Constructivist Approaches ◽  
Material Setting ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

The final chapter of the book discusses Trevor Pinch’s more recent works, and addresses three main topics. The first one is the topic of selling, on which the author returns after the mid ‘80s works on market selling. The primary focus is now on the skills and knowledge involved in the practices of selling. In particular, the chapter addresses the translation and adaptation of skill from a material setting of selling to another (from street market to television sales), and some peculiar forms of knowledge like Territorial Knowledge. A discussion on the relevance of sound in selling introduces the reader to the second topic of the chapter: sound studies. The chapter presents their origin, their main current tendencies, and Pinch’s own trajectories in the field of research, from the work on the social construction of the Moog synthesizer to the inquiries on the stabilization of sound. Finally, the chapter discusses the recent proposal of an ontological turn in Science and Technology Studies (STS), and the related accusations of “perspectivism” opposed to social constructivist approaches like Social Construction of Technology (SCOT).

‘Civil skepticism’ and the social construction of knowledge: A case in dendroclimatology

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 821-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meritxell Ramírez-i-Ollé
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Blue Intensity

Early Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars recognized that the social construction of knowledge depends on skepticism’s parasitic relationship to background expectations and trust. Subsequent generations have paid less empirical attention to skepticism in science and its relationship with trust. I seek to rehabilitate skepticism in STS – particularly, Merton’s view of skepticism as a scientific norm sustained by trust among status peers – with a study of what I call ‘civil skepticism’. The empirical grounding is a case in contemporary dendroclimatology and the development of a method (‘Blue Intensity’) for generating knowledge about climate change from trees. I present a sequence of four instances of civil skepticism involved in making Blue Intensity more resistant to critique, and hence credible (in laboratory experiments, workshops, conferences, and peer-review of articles). These skeptical interactions depended upon maintaining communal notions of civility among an increasingly extended network of mutually trusted peers through a variety of means: by making Blue Intensity complementary to existing methods used to study a diverse natural world (tree-ring patterns) and by contributing to a shared professional goal (the study of global climate change). I conclude with a sociological theory about the role of civil skepticism in constituting knowledge-claims of greater generality and relevance.

Nuclear Partition

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-90
Author(s):  
Chaitanya Ravi
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Organizational Infrastructure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
The Status ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Theory Section ◽  
Fast Breeder Reactors ◽  
Breeder Reactors

The second chapter begins with an explanation of the origins, evolution, and organizational infrastructure of the Indian nuclear programme. Three Science and Technology Studies (STS) case studies deploying the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach are introduced in the theory section and their combined insights are used to organize various individual and collective actors in India based on their initial reactions to the nuclear deal. The chapter then focuses specifically on the debate between two powerful bureaucracies (Department of Atomic Energy [DAE] and Ministry of External Affairs [MEA] within the Indian state over the civilian-military proportions of the separation plan and the status of the fast breeder reactors). The MEA’s generalist vision and the DAE’s narrower departmental vision are observed in the form of two contending separation plans with different civil-military facility balances and rival safeguarded versus unsafeguarded statuses of the fast breeder reactor. The DAE’s tactics to win the debate are elucidated.

scholarly journals Daphne the Cat: Reimagining human–animal boundaries on Facebook

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1290-1306
Author(s):  
Verónica Policarpo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Human Animal

How are companion animals, and cats in particular, built as Otherness, on social media? And how are human–animal boundaries reconfigured along the flow of online digital interactions? This article tries to answer these questions drawing on the story of female cat Daphne, as reported on the official Facebook page of a Portuguese animal shelter. Based on both narrative analysis and categorical content analysis of the posts and comments around the story, the article discusses the social construction of nonhuman animals, bringing together concepts from human–animal studies, science and technology studies, and media studies. It argues that, through digital practices on social media, animals are done and undone. Two emergent and conflicting versions of the same animal, Daphne, are constructed throughout the unstable and contingent flow of digital exchanges: the-animal-victim and the-animal-maladjusted. As such, digital practices become also animal practices, contributing to normative definitions of what an animal ‘is’. As a result, human–animal boundaries are reinstalled and reinforced, and the animals themselves become, once more and paradoxically, invisible.

scholarly journals Science and Democracy Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Joseph Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Normative Commitment ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Society ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Social Construction Of Science

To what extent is the normative commitment of STS to the democratization of science a product of the democratic contexts where it is most often produced? STS scholars have historically offered a powerful critical lens through which to understand the social construction of science, and seminal contributions in this area have outlined ways in which citizens have improved both the conduct of science and its outcomes. Yet, with few exceptions, it remains that most STS scholarship has eschewed study of more problematic cases of public engagement of science in rich, supposedly mature Western democracies, as well as examination of science-making in poorer, sometimes non-democratic contexts. How might research on problematic cases and dissimilar political contexts traditionally neglected by STS scholars push the field forward in new ways? This paper responds to themes that came out of papers from two Eastern Sociological Society Presidential Panels on Science and Technology Studies in an Era of Anti-Science. It considers implications of the normative commitment by sociologists working in the STS tradition to the democratization of science.

Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
International System ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Constructivist Approaches ◽  
Rule Making

Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics identifies a class of social practices of rule-making, interpretation, and application, demonstrating the causal importance of these practices (and the procedural rules that constitute and govern them) in explaining outcomes in world politics. The book utilizes rule-oriented and practice-turn constructivist approaches to argue that procedural rules about rule-making, or secondary rules, shape the way that actors present and evaluate proposals for change in the rules and institutions that structure international systems. The book examines four important international security cases: the social construction of great power management after the Napoleonic Wars; the creation of a rule against the use of force, except in cases of self-defense and collective security, enshrined in the Kellogg-Briand Pact; contestation of the international system by al-Qaeda in the period immediately following the 9/11 attacks; and United Nations efforts to establish norms for state conduct in the cyber domain. The book makes several contributions to International Relations theory. It provides insight into how actors know how and when to engage in specific forms of social construction. It extends the application of practice-turn constructivism to processes of making and interpreting rules. It improves upon existing tools to explain change in the rules and institutions of the international system. Finally, it demonstrates the utility of the book’s approach for the study of global governance, the international system, and for emerging efforts to identify forms and sites of authority and hierarchy in world politics.

scholarly journals Ephemeral Infrastructures of Drug Smuggling Mobilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 009145092110455
Author(s):  
Javier Guerrero C. ◽  
Craig Martin
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Drug Smuggling ◽  
The Core ◽  
Organizational Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Temporal Qualities

The study of drug smuggling has often taken an organizational perspective whereby the structures of how smuggling is constituted predominate. Building on a growing body of scholarship addressing the networked complexities of drug smuggling this article considers the importance of distinct infrastructural arrangements. Its primary focus is on the materiality of drug smuggling infrastructures, and how the social, spatial and temporal qualities of these configurations overlap with licit mobility infrastructures, including intersections of visibility/invisibility, stability, and permanence. The core conceptual premise, drawn from Science and Technology Studies, is that drug smuggling mobilities are formed of ephemeral infrastructures that exhibit temporary, short-lived stability and permanence through the subversion of licit infrastructural configurations. Drawing on material from El Dorado Airport, Colombia, the paper examines the everyday artefacts which constitute these ephemeral infrastructures.

Entanglements

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Tosoni ◽  
Trevor Pinch
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Wars ◽  
Relevant Social Groups

Based on several rounds of academic interview and conversations with Trevor Pinch, the book introduces the reader to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and in particular to the social constructionist approach to science, technology and sound. Through the lenses of Pinch’s lifetime work, STS students, and scholars in fields dealing with technological mediation, are provided with an in-depth overview, and with suggestions for further reading, on the most relevant past and ongoing debates in the field. The book starts presenting the approach launched by the Bath School in the early sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), and follows the development of the field up to the so called “Science wars” of the ‘90s, and to the popularization of the main acquisitions of the field by Trevor Pinch and Harry Collins’ Golem trilogy. Then, it deals with the sociology of technology, and presents the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach, launched by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker in 1984 and developed in more than 30 years of research, comparing it with alternative approaches like Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network theory. Five issues are addressed in depth: relevant social groups in the social construction of technology; the intertwining of social representations and practices; the importance of tacit knowledge in SCOT’s approach to the nonrepresentational; the controversy over nonhuman agency; and the political implications of SCOT. Finally, it presents the main current debates in STS, in particular in the study of materiality and ontology, and presents Pinch’s more recent work in sound studies.

What Does It Mean to Be Social? Defining the Social Landscape for Children With Childhood Apraxia of Speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Tarshis ◽  
Michelle Garcia Winner ◽  
Pamela Crooke
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Childhood Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Social Competencies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
Communication Challenges ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Speech Motor

Purpose What does it mean to be social? In addition, how is that different from behaving socially appropriately? The purpose of this clinical focus article is to tackle these two questions along with taking a deeper look into how communication challenges in childhood apraxia of speech impact social competencies for young children. Through the lens of early social development and social competency, this clinical focus article will explore how speech motor challenges can impact social development and what happens when young learners miss early opportunities to grow socially. While not the primary focus, the clinical focus article will touch upon lingering issues for individuals diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech as they enter the school-aged years. Conclusion Finally, it will address some foundational aspects of intervention and offer ideas and suggestions for structuring therapy to address both speech and social goals.

The Social Construction of Our Bodies

1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 1186-1186
Author(s):  
Garth J. O. Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
The Social
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