4S Mission

Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.

Latest 4S News

The Energy Fictions of Cure and Dependency

Published On: Sep 22, 2025

Can energy enliven political ecology’s relationship to disability? Dr. Emerson Cram has been lingering with this question as they feel through remnants of poor farms, state asylums, and other carceral institutions negating “abnormal” dependencies.

Assemblage Thinking for Studying Digital Artifacts: Promises and Challenges

Published On: Sep 8, 2025

This report shares insights drawn from the panel “Navigating the Grey: Assemblage Thinking and Digital Artifacts” conducted during the 10th Annual STS Italia Conference hosted in Milano (11–13 June 2025). The panelists and authors of this post investigate the ways in which assemblage thinking might assist STS analyses of digital artifacts.

Some recent evidence of the vibrancy of the STS scholarship in Taiwan

Published On: Sep 5, 2025

Click along if you wish to know more about the Taiwanese STS scholarship.

4S Publications

Science, Technology, and Human Values

For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.

Between Code and Culture: The Evolving Role of Conversation Designers and UX in AI Development

Elizabeth Rodwell1Department of Information Science Technology, 14743University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies available to consumers have been rapidly advancing but without parallel insight into the social process of their design....

Machine's Eye View: Postmodern Data Science and the Politics of Ground Truth

Jathan SadowskiEmerging Technologies Research Lab, Faculty of Information Technology, 2541Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This paper advances the critical analysis of machine learning by placing it in direct relation with actuarial science as a way to further draw out their shared epistemic...

Making the Global Local: The Case of Chinese Research and Innovation Evaluation Systems

Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Alan Irwin, Xuan Li

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Starting with China's increasingly prominent role in the global politics of science, this paper considers the case of Chinese policies for the evaluation of Research &...

The Park Multiple: Practices of Coordination in a Conservation–Tourism Partnership in South Africa

Wisse Van Engelen, Annet Pauwelussen, Esther Turnhout

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Conservation–tourism partnerships are often promoted as win–win solutions to the twin problems of underfunded conservation and unsustainable development. Critics on...

“Bogeymen,” “Murderers,” and “Loonies”: Emotions in Dutch Debates on 5G and Health

Floortje Moes, Christian Bröer, Klasien Horstman

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Scientific advice is often solicited in governance, yet it is increasingly challenged in the public domain. Public participation is often suggested to mediate opposing...

Engaging Science, Technology and Society

Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.

Situating Microbes

Published On: Jul 13 2025

Duygu Kaşdoğan, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Ali Kenner, Aalok Khandekar, Angela Okune, Grant Jun Otsuki, Sujatha Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, Amanda Windle, Emily York

Issue 11.1 includes the thematic collection “Situating Microbes.” The collected essays on microbe studies in STS aims to situates microbes in complex ecologies beyond their pathogenic formations. All the articles in this issue...

Situating Microbes Within Complex Ecologies

Published On: Jul 25 2025

Jose A. Cañada, Salla Sariola, Matthäus Rest

The role of microbes in society has traditionally foregrounded their pathogenic character. However, this framing is being increasingly problematised as new research has shown the complex and nuanced role they have, not only in...

Development Histories, AMR Futures, and the Biosociality of a ‘Hotspot'

Published On: Jul 31 2025

Andrea Butcher

Paul Rabinow identified ‘practices of life’ as a potent site of twenty-first-century knowledge and power, arguing that instruments of genomic characterisation will reshape contemporary social relations, thus establishing a...

Racism and Vibrio cholerae: A Sociogenic Approach to Understanding Pathogenicity

Victoria Koski-Karell

After its pandemic debut in 1817, cholera became the most feared disease of the nineteenth century. Its source, a toxigenic bacterium: Vibrio cholerae. There is little coincidence that the prolific and far-reaching spread of this...

4S Blog: Backchannels

The Energy Fictions of Cure and Dependency

Emerson Cram
Sep 22, 2025
Can energy enliven political ecology’s relationship to disability? Dr. Emerson Cram has been lingering with this question as they feel through remnants of poor farms, state asylums, and other carceral institutions negating “abnormal” dependencies.

Assemblage Thinking for Studying Digital Artifacts: Promises and Challenges

Kévin Carillon (Université catholique de Louvain), François Lambotte (Université catholique de Louvain), Silvia Gherardi (University of Trento), Lilo Meier (European University Viadrina in Frankfurt, Oder)
Sep 08, 2025
This report shares insights drawn from the panel “Navigating the Grey: Assemblage Thinking and Digital Artifacts” conducted during the 10th Annual STS Italia Conference hosted in Milano (11–13 June 2025). The panelists and authors of this post investigate the ways in which assemblage thinking might assist STS analyses of digital artifacts.

Some recent evidence of the vibrancy of the STS scholarship in Taiwan

Wen-Ling Hong, Wan-Ju Lee & Hsiu-Yun Wang
Sep 05, 2025
Click along if you wish to know more about the Taiwanese STS scholarship.

When does a field not become a field? An Interview with Dr. Jane Calvert on 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' (MIT Press, 2024)

Author: Jane Calverty (University of Edinburgh) Editor: Aaron Gregory (UC Riverside)
Aug 25, 2025
Following a recent review of 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' (MIT Press, 2024) published by 4S Backchannels, author Jane Calvert (University of Edinburgh) discusses their new book with Aaron Gregory (Editor, 4S Backchannels).

Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.

STS News

Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.

Vanderbilt | Mellon Assistant Professor of Climate and/or Environmental Humanities

Sep 24, 2025
The Climate and Environmental Studies Program at Vanderbilt University is accepting applications for a non-tenure-track Mellon Assistant Professor (three-year term, 2-2 teaching load) whose research engages climate and environmental humanities. We invite candidates working in all historical periods and cultural fields and especially welcome those who work in the arts and/or public humanities. Applicants must have completed their Ph.D. between August 16, 2022 and August 1, 2026. in a climate and/...

New Book | The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep-Sea Life

Sep 24, 2025
In an era of accelerating extinctions, what does it mean to discover thousands of new species in the deep sea? As we see the catastrophic effects of the Anthropocene proliferate, advanced technologies also grant us greater access to the furthest reaches of the world’s oceans, facilitating the discovery of countless new species. Sorting through the implications of this strange paradox, Stacy Alaimo explores the influence this newfound intimacy with the deep sea might have on our broader rel...

New Book | Taming Egg Donors: The Egg Donation Reproductive Market in Spain

Sep 24, 2025
Spain has become one of the most prominent fertility markets in the world, largely fuelled by the availability of human eggs. Behind the promise of cutting-edge technology and parenthood lies a carefully tailored system to recruit, manage, and discipline egg donors. In this book, published as part of Palgrave's flagship book series 'Health, Technology and Society', Anna Molas explores how young women are incorporated as egg donors into the global reproductive industry. Through in-depth ethnograp...

New Book | Science Communication and Trust

Sep 24, 2025
This open access book presents groundbreaking research, offering new empirical findings, showcasing a range of different methods, and advancing theoretical perspectives relating to science communication and trust. The investigation of science communication and trust is enhanced by the many international scholars and disciplinary approaches featured. The book includes three thematic sections: the first focuses on the role of trustworthy science communicators, the second is concerned with the vary...