4S Mission
Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.
Latest 4S News
4S Digital Website Coordinator
Published On: Oct 30, 2025
Deadline: Nov 16, 2025
4S seeks to appoint a new Digital Website Coordinator, to work for 10 hours per week for at least 12 months. Appropriate candidates should have familiarity with STS as a domain, solid technical skills with digital infrastructures, and the ability to work collaboratively with the Managing Director and elected leadership at 4S as well as the external providers. The rate of pay is US$25–30 per hour depending on skills and experience, for an annual rate of pay of US $12,500–15,000. Note ...
My journey through the cell in search of possible paths to becoming a feminist scientist: the “Feminista In Vitro” podcast
Published On: Nov 3, 2025
In Feminista In Vitro, Fernanda Mariath explores how feminist perspectives can reshape biomedical science—bridging cells, stories, and the social dimensions of research. Drawing on her laboratory experience and her journey as an early-career feminist STS researcher in Brazil, she reflects on how science can be reimagined through a feminist lens. Her research inspired a podcast of the same name, featuring interviews with STS feminist scholars from Brazil and other parts of the world.
CfP | Examining the State of STS in Southeast Asia: A (Technological) Snapshot
Published On: Oct 18, 2025
Deadline: Dec 31, 2025
The editors of East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (EASTS), together with guest editors Tobias Burgers and Ian Kalman, invite submissions for an upcoming special issue. We welcome manuscripts that engage with the theme of the special issue. The abstract outlining its scope is included below. Scholars with relevant work are encouraged to submit full manuscripts directly through the EASTS submission system: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/teas20
When submit...
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
My journey through the cell in search of possible paths to becoming a feminist scientist: the “Feminista In Vitro” podcast
Rethinking Science, Technology, and Care in the Age of Multiple Disasters: Report from the KASTS 2024 International Conference
Around the Future Campfire: Listening with Signals and Noise
Reflections on Copernicus and Africa–EU Space Diplomacy
Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.
Making and Doing: STS Beyond the Four Corners of the Paper
STS News
Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.
4S Digital Website Coordinator
Seminar | A Call for Multilingual Inclusiveness in Science and Disaster Research
Authors: Rodolfo Hernandez (Howard University, US), Jen Henderson (Texas Tech University, US), Kim Fortun (University of California Irvine, US). Discussants: Leandro Rodriguez Medina (Universidad Autónoma Metropol...
Ohio State | Assistant Professor in Digital Cultures and Ethnography
CfP | Examining the State of STS in Southeast Asia: A (Technological) Snapshot
When submit...
