A “Middle Voice” from the South

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This is a reflection on Traweek’s work on epistemic authority in relation to Kaleidos—Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography in Ecuador.

Publishing ESTS

In our previous editorial (Khandekar et al. 2021), we noted the blackboxing of scholarly publication infrastructure that we encountered when we assumed editorship of the journal. We outlined several aspects of infrastructuring that we have undertaken since, with an explicit goal of supporting transnational workflows and participation in ESTS. In this editorial, we continue describing our infrastructural work, highlighting especially the work of content production at ESTS. We also discuss the relevance of our infrastructural work for open access (OA) scholarly publishing.

STS as a Lens to Study Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. In this essay responding to Traweek's Bernal lecture, Sørensen draws on her critical understanding of academic disciplines to discuss how STS may develop the field’s understanding of disciplines, interdisciplinarity, and itself.

Cartographies for Feminist STS

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. In this essay responding to Traweek's Bernal lecture, Subramaniam explores Traweek’s mentorship in her own work as a feminist STS scholar in biological sciences.

“I Prefer the Map”

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This essay comprises Traweek’s acceptance speech, delivered on Monday, August 17, 2020 at the virtual joint conference of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), and revised and submitted for publication in Engaging Science, Technology, and Society on Sunday, September 20, 2020. In this essay, Traweek explores “certainty” in academic ways of knowing.

Working at the Edges of Institutions During their Transformations

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This essay is a commentary on Traweek’s work from the perspective of Sandra Harding with respect to their shared backdrop of the science wars, the value of standpoint theory and of Traweek’s ‘meshworks,’ and their work in different non-US/European STS contexts.

Building Capacity for Action-Oriented Research in Arizona’s Helium Extraction Boom

Northeast Arizona’s Holbrook Basin is an epicenter in the rush to secure new helium deposits in the U.S. While the helium boom has revealed unease amongst residents, significant knowledge and procedural gaps have prevented the public from making sense of the industry and its potential impacts. These gaps are produced by the opacity of critical minerals extraction, long-term regulatory neglect, and lack of commitments to public participation in environmental governance. However, we suggest that engaged STS scholarship can meaningfully assist at-risk communities in navigating these complexities. This is illustrated in a series of workshops developed by STS researchers and residents for the purpose of building local capacity for independent research and knowledge production. We detail the mutual affordances of these workshops and offer a potentially replicable framework: The Capabilities Model for Social Learning in Engaged STS. We conclude by arguing that this model is a useful lens for examining how STS critical thinking can be leveraged in collaborative research to pursue long-term social change.

The Value of the Map and the Place of STS

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner, for her distinguished contributions to the field of STS. In this essay responding to Traweek’s Bernal Lecture, I explore the continuing relevance of her work for Japan’s STS community. Even though this community has grown rapidly since the beginning of the 2000s, I argue in this essay that her work, produced more than three decades ago, encourages us today to reflect how we may want to relate ourselves to the local organization of science and the politics of epistemic authority in the country.

Credibility via Coupling

This study investigates Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) as one example of a coordinated approach to establishing scientific credibility. MIPs originated within climate science as a method to evaluate and compare disparate climate models, but MIPs or MIP-like projects are now spreading to many scientific fields. Within climate science, MIPs have advanced knowledge of: a) the climate phenomena being modeled, and b) the building of climate models themselves. MIPs thus build scientific confidence in the climate modeling enterprise writ large, reducing questions of the credibility or reproducibility of any single model. This paper will discuss how MIPs organize people, models, and data through institution and infrastructure coupling (IIC). IIC involves establishing mechanisms and technologies for collecting, distributing, and comparing data and models (infrastructural work), alongside corresponding governance structures, rules of participation, and collaboration mechanisms that enable partners around the world to work together effectively (institutional work). Coupling these efforts involves developing formal and informal ways to standardize data and metadata, create common vocabularies, provide uniform tools and methods for evaluating resulting data, and build community around shared research topics.

Searching for how Epistemic Power is Made, Appropriated, Circulated, and Challenged

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This is an edited transcription, which accompanies the full audio file also available in this issue of the journal. The interview supplements the text of Traweek’s 2020 Bernal lecture. In this interview, Traweek discusses her research, academic career, the many influences on her life, and her thoughts on STS—in the past and in the future.